mplished this by the aid of his two brothers,
but of these he afterwards killed one and banished the other,--Syloson
by name,--so that he became sole ruler and despot of the island.

This island kingdom of Polycrates was a small one, about eighty miles in
circumference, but it was richly fertile, and had the honor of being the
birthplace of many illustrious Greeks, among whom we may name
Pythagoras, the famous philosopher. The city of Samos became, under
Polycrates, "the first of all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was
adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied
with water by a great aqueduct, tunnelled for nearly a mile through a
mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and
magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or
wholly constructed by Polycrates.

But this despot did not content himself with ruling the island and
adorning the city which he had seized. He was ambitious and
unscrupulous, and aspired to become master of all the islands of the
AEgean Sea, and of Ionia in Asia Minor. He conquered several of these
islands and a number of towns in the mainland, defeated the Lesbian
fleet that came against him during his war with Miletus, got together a
hundred armed ships and hired a thousand bowmen, and went forward with
his designs with a fortune that never seemed to desert him. His naval
power became the greatest in the world of Greece, and it seemed as if he
would succeed in all his ambitious designs. But a dreadful fate awaited
the tyrant. Like Croesus, he was to learn that good fortune is apt to
be followed by disaster. The remainder of his story is part history and
part legend, and we give it as told by old Herodotus, who has preserved
so many interesting tales of ancient Greece.

At, that time Persia, whose king Cyrus had overcome Croesus, was the
greatest empire in the world. All western Asia lay in its grasp; Asia
Minor was overrun; and Cambyses, the king who had succeeded Cyrus, was
about to invade the ancient land of Egypt. The king of this country,
Amasis by name, was in alliance with Polycrates, rich gifts had passed
between them, and they seemed the best of friends. But Amasis had his
superstitions, and the constant good fortune of Polycrates seemed to him
so different from the ordinary lot of kings that he feared that some
misfortune must follow it. He perhaps had heard the story of Solon and
Croesus. Amasis accordingly wrote