y them
to Croesus, and besides, a breastplate sent them by Amasis. (Ibid. iii.
47, 48.) And yet we know that there was not at that time any city so
desirous of honor, or such an enemy to tyrants, as Sparta. For what
breastplate or cup was the cause of their driving the Cypselidae out of
Corinth and Ambracia, Lygdamis out of Naxos, the children of Pisistratus
out of Athens, Aeschines out of Sicyon, Symmachus out of Thasus, Aulis
out of Phocis, and Aristogenes out of Miletus; and of their overturning
the domineering powers of Thessaly, pulling down Aristomedes and Angelus
by the help of King Leotychides?--which facts are elsewhere more largely
described. Now, if Herodotus says true, they were in the highest degree
guilty both of malice and folly, when, denying a most honorable and most
just cause of their expedition, they confessed that in remembrance of
a former injury, and too highly valuing an inconsiderable matter, they
invaded a miserable and afflicted people.

Now perhaps he gave the Lacedaemonians this stroke, as directly falling
under his pen; but the city of Corinth, which was wholly out of the
course of his story, he has brought in--going out of his way (as they
say) to fasten upon it--and has bespattered it with a most filthy crime
and most shameful calumny. "The Corinthians," says he, "studiously
helped this expedition of the Lacedaemonians to Samos, as having
themselves also been formerly affronted by the Samians." The matter was
this. Periander tyrant of Corinth sent three hundred boys, sons to the
principal men of Corcyra, to King Alyattes, to be gelt. These, going
ashore in the island of Samos, were by the Samians taught to sit as
suppliants in the temple of Diana, where they preserved them, setting
before them for their food sesame mingled with honey. This our author
calls an affront put by the Samians on the Corinthians, who therefore
instigated the Lacedaemonians against them, to wit, because the Samians
had saved three hundred children of the Greeks from being unmanned.
By attributing this villany to the Corinthians, he makes the city more
wicked than the tyrant. He indeed was revenging himself on those of
Corcyra who had slain his son; but what had the Corinthians suffered,
that they should punish the Samians for putting an obstacle to so great
a cruelty and wickedness?--and this, after three generations, reviving
the memory of an old quarrel for the sake of that tyranny, which
they found so grievous