Cambyses had made up his mind to complete by the conquest of Egypt the work which his father had done. With a view to so doing, he was collecting a great armament, in which a powerful fleet was to play a part. This method of invasion, thus adopted for the first time, served as a precedent for all the great Persian expeditions of after years. The fact that it was Cambyses who conceived the design is sufficient to stamp the picture which Herodotus draws of him as a copy of a somewhat clumsy Egyptian caricature, even if other evidence did not tend the same way.
Ships were levied from Phœnicia, and the Greeks of Cyprus had also to contribute to the fleet. H. iii. 19. The latter, after the fall of Assyria, to which they had been in a position of nominal subordination, had enjoyed a short period of absolute liberty. Amasis of Egypt had reduced them to subjection; but, on the establishment of the Persian power in the Syrian region, they had thrown off their allegiance to Egypt and tendered their submission to the new empire.
Polykrates began to reconsider his position. A Greek legend, which Herodotus has preserved, represents him as having been thrown over by Amasis out of superstitious apprehension. His hitherto unvarying success, so thought the Egyptian king, must end in some terrible disaster proportionate in greatness. Herodotus could not resist a tale which so entirely harmonized with his views of life.
In actual fact, the reverse seems to have been the case. SAMOS ANNEXED BY PERSIA. Polykrates broke off the alliance with Amasis; and not merely did so, but actually despatched forty ships to aid the Persian expedition. He tried, indeed, to kill two birds with one stone, and missed both; for he manned these vessels with Samian suspects, who had no mind to lend their bodies for this experiment in diplomacy, and forthwith turned Polykrates’ own weapons against himself by sailing back with the fleet and making an attack on Samos. Failing in that, they sailed away to Laconia, with a view to getting help of Sparta. Polykrates’ great bid for Persian favour had miscarried.
What followed is peculiarly interesting as being the first example of the way in which Corinth could, and did, force the hand of the Lacedæmonians in matters of policy.
The Lacedæmonians had indeed grievances against the Samians; but it is unlikely that they would have undertaken the expedition, had they not been urged thereto by Corinth. The grievance on the side of Corinth was of a kind that was fated to reappear on many momentous occasions in the course of the next century. Corinthian trade had been interfered with by the Samians. The piratical enterprise of Polykrates was sure to be directed against the trade of a state which had broken off its old commercial relations with Samos and transferred its connection to Miletus.
The expedition took place about 524. It failed. After a fruitless siege of forty days the Lacedæmonians returned to Peloponnese.
Soon afterwards Polykrates met his end. He was enticed to Magnesia on the Mæander by Orœtes, Satrap of Sardes, and there put to death.
His secretary, Mæandrios, carried on the tyranny for some years; but about the year 516 a Persian force invaded the island, H. iii. 139–149. and established Syloson, a brother of Polykrates who had won the favour of Darius, as tyrant in the Persian interest. A brother of Mæandrios made one vigorous but vain attempt to win the island back. The acquisition of Samos completed the Persian conquest of the Asian coast.
It is significant that Sparta, when appealed to by Mæandrios for help, not merely refused it, but dismissed him from the Peloponnese, lest he should bring about political complications. Sparta’s policy on this occasion, and her attitude at the time of the Ionian revolt, show that the fear of experience had taken the place with her of that courage of ignorance which she had shown in her alliance with Lydia.