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Updated: May 4, 2025
Casting a look over the past, he saw that Dr Graham had been right in his reference to the Ring of Polycrates, for although he was outwardly still prosperous and high-placed, shame had come upon him, and evil was about to befall.
Darius had been induced thus to interpose in Syloson's behalf by the following very extraordinary circumstances. Syloson was the brother of Polycrates, whose unhappy history has already been given.
He went out in a galley far on to the open sea, and then cast his precious ring into its waters, returning in an excess of grief. Some six days afterwards a fisherman came to his gate, bearing a fish so fine and large he deemed it to be only fitted for the table of Polycrates.
Tuscul., Verrius, Aristotle, Titus Livius, in his relation of the battle of Cannae, Plinius, lib. 7, cap. 32 and 34, A. Gellius, lib. 3, c. 15, and many other writers, to Diagoras the Rhodian, Chilon, Sophocles, Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, Philippides, Philemon, Polycrates, Philistion, M. Juventi, and others who died with joy.
"Wallenstein" had been laid aside; he took it up again with glowing feelings; he wrote "The Glove" and "The Ring of Polycrates;" he revised "The Ghostseer" for a new edition, and later on he had the joy of witnessing a masterly performance of the part of Wallenstein by the fine actor, Graff.
We see this in the old legend of Polycrates of Samos, whose schemes all succeeded, and whose ventures all turned out well. He consulted a soothsayer about his alarming prosperity, who advised him to inflict some deliberate loss or sacrifice upon himself; so Polycrates drew from his finger and flung into the sea a signet-ring which he possessed, with a jewel of great rarity and beauty in it.
His work is not of great merit. The following is a favourable specimen of his stories. A monstrous child was born in Ætolia, after the death of its father, Polycrates. At a public meeting, where it was proposed to do away with it, the father suddenly appeared, and begged that the child might be given him.
But this we do know, that the friendship between Amasis and Polycrates was broken, and that Polycrates offered to help Cambyses in his invasion, and sent forty ships to the Nile for this purpose. On these were some Samians whom the tyrant wished to get rid of, and whom he secretly asked the Persian king not to let return.
By all means, said Lamprias, by as much as Poseidon was more civilized than Thrasybulus, since not like him a winner but a loser.... Men must be cheated by oaths. And Glaucias said: I have heard this saying used against Polycrates the tyrant; probably too it was said against others: but why do you ask these questions?
In narrative he is below mediocrity: his attempt, for instance, to tell the story of the ring of Polycrates is incredibly languid and tedious. Where his style reaches its highest level of force and refinement is in the more imaginative passages, and in the occasional general reflections where he makes the thought remarkable by an unexpected cadence of language.
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