Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/263

 DESTRUCTION OF POLYKRATES BY OR(ETES. 215 pleted, if not begun, by him. Aristotle quotes the public works of Polykrates as instances of the profound policy of despots, to occupy as well as to impoverish their subjects. 1 The earliest of all Grecian thalassokrats, or sea-kings, master of the greatest naval force in the TEgean, as well as of many among its islands, he displayed his love of letters by friendship to Anakreon, and his piety by consecrating to the Delian Apollo 9 the neighbor- ing island of Rheneia. But while thus outshining all his contem- poraries, victorious over Sparta and Corinth, and projecting farther aggrandizement, he was precipitated on a sudden into the abyss of ruin ; 3 and that too, as if to demonstrate unequivocally the agency of the envious gods, not from the revenge of any of his numerous victims, but from the gratuitous malice of a stranger whom he had never wronged and never even seen. The Persian satrap Oroetes, on the neighboring mainland, conceived an implacable hatred against him : no one could tell why, for he had no design of attacking the island ; and the trifling reasons conjecturally assigned, only prove that the real reason, whatever it might be, was unknown. Availing himself of the notorious ambition and cupidity of Polykrates, Oroetes sent to Samos 3 messenger, pretending that his life was menaced by Kambyses, and that he was anxious to make his escape with his abundant treasures. He proposed to Polykrates a share in this treasure, sufficient to make him master of all Greece, as far as that object could be achieved by money, provided the Samian prince would come over to convey him away. Masandrius, secretary of Poly- krates, was sent over to Magnesia on the Masander, to make inquiries ; he there saw the satrap with eight large coffers full of gold, or rather apparently so, being in reality full of stones, with a layer of gold at the top, 4 tied up ready for departure. The cupidity of Polykrates was not proof against so rich a bait : he crossed over to Magnesia with a considerable suite, and thus came into the power of Oroetes, in spite of the warnings of his 1 Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 4. ruv irepl ZU/LLOV Ipya lioXvicpaTt.a- iravra ybp ravra dvvarat. TOVT^V, ua^o^iav Kal Treviav TUV up%o[iEVuv. 1 Thucyd. i, 14, lii, 104. * Herodot. iii, 120. [Hannibal, c. 9).
 * Compare the trick of Hanribal at Gortyn in Krete, Cornelius Nepol