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Updated: May 4, 2025
We shall have hereafter to note its existence as an old London tradition; but the version of the Greek historian is briefly thus: Amasis, King of Egypt, conceived an extraordinary friendship for the Greek, Polycrates, and, observing that the latter was attended by unusual success in all his adventures, reflected that such unvarying felicity seldom lasted through life, and the end of such a career was often calamitous.
The controversy respecting Easter, A.D. 109, shows, however, how soon the disposition for Western supremacy was exhibited, Victor, the Bishop of Rome, requiring the Asiatic bishops to conform to the view of his Church respecting the time at which the festival of Easter should be observed, and being resisted therein by Polycrates, the Bishop of Ephesus, on behalf of the Eastern churches, the feud continuing until the determination of the Council of Nicea.
Let me, therefore, explain how I felt when I fell out of a hansom cab for the first and, I am happy to believe, the last time. Polycrates threw one ring into the sea to propitiate the Fates. Though I am told they do not like to be told so.
What shall I do with your eight millions?" What? I hardly knew. Throw it into the ocean; it would come back to me, like the ring of Polycrates. Nay, not like that, for it kept hatching, and came back like a hen with a brood of chickens that is, millions. This odious money sticks to me like so many burs, and I cannot get rid of it. Fortune is called a goddess.
But wary Amasis, noting his invariable good luck, advised him to sacrifice something, lest the Gods should grow jealous: so Polycrates threw a ring into the sea, with the thought thus to appease Nemesis cheaply; but an obliging fish allowed itself to be caught and served up for his supper with the ring in its internal economy; on hearing of which, wary Amasis foresaw trouble, and declined the alliance with thanks.
He may be compared to that Maeandrius of Samos, of whom Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to be of all men the most just, he was not able; for after the death of Polycrates he offered freedom to the people; and not till certain of them threatened to call him to a reckoning for what he had formerly done, did he change his purpose, and make himself a tyrant, lest he should be treated as a criminal.
For so the Athenians had marked them before with a Samaena, which is a sort of ship, low and flat in the prow, so as to look snub-nosed, but wide and large and well-spread in the hold, by which it both carries a large cargo and sails well. And so it was called, because the first of that kind was seen at Samos, having been built by order of Polycrates the tyrant.
Polycrates, although the seat of his dominion was a small island in the Ægean Sea, was a very wealthy, and powerful, and prosperous prince. All his plans and enterprises had been remarkably successful. He had built and equipped a powerful fleet, and had conquered many islands in the neighborhood of his own.
It was during this reign that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, became the master of the Grecian seas. The ambition and good fortune of this enterprising tyrant were alike remarkable. He possessed a hundred ships of war, with which he conquered several of the islands; and he aspired to nothing less than the dominion of Ionia, as well as of the islands in the AEgean.
But in the year 198 A.D. an exchange of letters between Pope Victor, Bishop Narcissus of Jerusalem, Polycrates of Ephesus, shows that the feast had been for years in existence. Many references are found in Tertullian and writers of his time to this festival. Connection of the Christian Festival with the Jewish.
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