Histories

The Lacedaemonians then came with a great army, and besieged +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos. They advanced to the wall and entered the tower that stands by the seaside in the outer part of the city; but then Polycrates himself attacked them with a great force and drove them out.

The mercenaries and many of the Samians themselves sallied out near the upper tower on the ridge of the hill and withstood the Lacedaemonian advance for a little while; then they fled back, with the Lacedaemonians pursuing and destroying them.

Had all the Lacedaemonians there that day been like Archias and Lycopas, +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos would have been taken. These two alone entered the fortress along with the fleeing crowd of Samians, and were cut off and killed in the city of +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos.

I myself have met in his native town of Pitana [*](A part of the town of Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta; Herodotus calls it by the Attic name of dh=mos; the Peloponnesian word would be kw/ma.) another Archias son of Samius, and grandson of the Archias mentioned above, who honored the Samians more than any other of his guest-friends, and told me that his father had borne the name Samius because he was the son of that Archias who was killed fighting bravely at +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos. The reason that he honored the Samians, he said, was that they had given his grandfather a public funeral.

So when the Lacedaemonians had besieged +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos for forty days with no success, they went away to the +Peloponnese [22,37.5] (region), Greece, Europe Peloponnesus.

There is a foolish tale abroad that Polycrates bribed them to depart by making and giving them a great number of gilded lead coins, as a native currency. This was the first expedition to Asia (continent)Asia made by Dorians of Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon.[*](Not the first expedition, that is, made by any inhabitants of +Laconia [22.583,37] (department), Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Laconia, Achaeans from that country having taken part in the Trojan war.)

When the Lacedaemonians were about to abandon them, the Samians who had brought an army against Polycrates sailed away too, and went to Siphnus;