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Updated: May 4, 2025
After the Asian coast, the isles of the Ægean stood next in the way of the Persian. In the little isle of Samos lived a king called Polycrates, who had always been wealthy and prosperous. His friend Amasis, king of Egypt, told him that the gods were always jealous of the fortunate, and that, if he wished to avert some terrible disaster, he had better give up something very precious.
Oroetes, the governor of Sardis, who had comported himself strangely even under Cambyses, having ventured to entrap and put to death an ally of that monarch's, Polycrates of Samos, had from the time of the Magian revolution assumed an attitude quite above that of a subject. Having a quarrel with Mitrobates, the governor of a neighboring province, he murdered him and annexed his territory.
"If so, I, like Polycrates, am the gainer by my own precaution; for, in your presence, dear lady, do I first truly find my right consciousness." She clapped her hands gleefully, wilfully misunderstanding his meaning. "Most complimentary of monarchs! So I am the haggard old fisherman who replaced the lost bawble in the royal treasury!
The messenger went back to Polycrates, and reported that all which Oretes had said was true; and Polycrates then determined to go to the main land himself to pay Oretes a visit, that they might mature together their plans for the intended campaigns. He ordered a fifty-oared galley to be prepared to convey him. His daughter felt a presentiment, it seems, that some calamity was impending.
This sect of philosophers is called the Italic, by reason Pythagoras started his school in Italy; his hatred of the tyranny of Polycrates enforced him to abandon his native country Samos.
This was what Pindar taught all-worshiped prosperous Pindar, Aeschylus' contemporary, the darling poet of the Greeks. The idea is illustrated by Herodotus' story of the Ring of Polycrates. You remember how the latter, being tyrant of Samos, applied to Amasis of Egypt for an alliance.
In the following year Polycrates of Samos bid higher still, offering him two talents, and the young surgeon repaired to that charming island. Thus far the career of Democedes had been one of steady progress. But, as Solon told Croesus, a man cannot count himself sure of happiness while he lives.
The King of Samos accepted the gift, the fish was sent to the royal kitchen, and on opening it a valuable ring was found in its stomach. It was at once taken to Polycrates, who immediately recognised his abandoned treasure, which he now valued the more as it seemed to be returned by divine interposition.
The philosopher Chrysippus, O Polycrates, quotes an ancient proverb, not as really it should be, apprehending, I suppose, that it sounded too harshly, but so as he thought it would run best, in these words, Who praise their father but the generous sons? But Dionysodorus the Troezenian proves him to be wrong, and restores the true reading, which is this,
While thus engaged, the land of the Pharaohs, the Persian court, Greece in the time of the Pisistratidae and Polycrates grew more and more distinct before my mental vision.
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