Histories

“You are not to be reckoned a man; the island of +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos lies close to your province, yet you have not added it to the king's dominion—an island so easy to conquer that some native of it revolted against his rulers with fifteen hoplites, and is now lord of it.”[*](See hdt. 3.39.)

Some say that Oroetes, angered by this reproach, did not so much desire to punish the source of it as to destroy Polycrates utterly, the occasion of the reproach.

A few people, however, say that when Oroetes sent a herald to +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos with some request (it is not said what this was), the herald found Polycrates lying in the men's apartments, in the company of Anacreon of +Teos [26.8,38.1667] (Perseus) Teos;

and, whether on purpose to show contempt for Oroetes, or by mere chance, when Oroetes' herald entered and addressed him, Polycrates, then lying with his face to the wall, never turned or answered him.