But Amasis was of a different opinion. He felt that no power could avail to save a man so unnaturally fortunate from the vengeance of the jealous gods. He sent his herald to say that he renounced the friendship between them lest, said he, if some dreadful and great calamity befell Polycrates he might himself be involved in it!
Black anger at this desertion filled the heart of Polycrates. He heard that Cambyses, son of Cyrus, King of Persia, was on the point of invading Egypt with a great army, so he offered him help by sea. Cambyses gladly accepted this alliance, and Polycrates despatched forty ships of war.
But in his heaven-sent blindness he manned them with malcontents and men of conquered nations whom he suspected of disloyalty and wished to remove—sending with them secretly a message to Cambyses that he did not wish a man of them to return.
These warriors mutinied before they reached the battle ground, and returned in war array against Samos, but they, too, failed and Polycrates became more powerful than ever. And then it was that Orœtes, the Persian satrap of Sardis, who had conceived a hatred of Polycrates, enticed the fortunate tyrant to visit him and seized upon him treacherously and crucified him, so that men might see how the jealous gods will not suffer a mortal to share immortal bliss, and that soon or late pride has a fall.
ROMULUS AND REMUS
BY MRS. GUY E. LLOYD
Every one has heard tell of Rome, that great city, already ancient when Cæsar found on the shores of Britain woad-painted savages living in a swamp where now stands the mightiest city in the world. The story of Romulus and Remus tells of the founding of this ancient city, and how it took its name from its first king.
Older even than Rome was a town built on a hill not far away by Iulus, son of Æneas, of whose wanderings you have heard, and called Alba Longa, the Long White City.