Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]

The Ring Of Polycrates

Near the coast of Asia Minor lies the bright and beautiful island of Samos, one of the choicest gems of the Ægean archipelago. This island was, somewhere about the year 530 B.C., seized by a political adventurer named Polycrates. He accomplished this by the aid of his two brothers, but of these he afterwards killed one and banished the other,—Syloson by name,—so that he became sole ruler and despot of the island.

This island kingdom of Polycrates was a small one, about eighty miles in circumference, but it was richly fertile, and had the honor of being the birthplace of many illustrious Greeks, among whom we may name Pythagoras, the famous philosopher. The city of Samos became, under Polycrates, "the first of all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied with water by a great aqueduct, tunneled for nearly a mile through a mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or wholly constructed by Polycrates.

But this despot did not content himself with ruling the island and adorning the city which he had seized. He was ambitious and unscrupulous, and aspired to become master of all the islands of the Ægean Sea, and of Ionia in Asia Minor. He conquered several of these islands and a number of towns in the mainland, defeated the Lesbian fleet that came against him during his war with Miletus, got together a hundred armed ships and hired a thousand bowmen, and went forward with his designs with a fortune that never seemed to desert him. His naval power became the greatest in the world of Greece, and it seemed as if he would succeed in all his ambitious designs. But a dreadful fate awaited the tyrant. Like Crœsus, he was to learn that good fortune is apt to be followed by disaster. The remainder of his story is part history and part legend, and we give it as told by old Herodotus, who has preserved so many interesting tales of ancient Greece.

At that time Persia, whose king Cyrus had overcome Crœsus, was the greatest empire in the world. All western Asia lay in its grasp; Asia Minor was overrun; and Cambyses, the king who had succeeded Cyrus, was about to invade the ancient land of Egypt. The king of this country, Amasis by name, was in alliance with Polycrates, rich gifts had passed between them, and they seemed the best of friends. But Amasis had his superstitions, and the constant good fortune of Polycrates seemed to him so different from the ordinary lot of kings that he feared that some misfortune must follow it. He perhaps had heard the story of Solon and Crœsus. Amasis accordingly wrote a warning letter to his friend.

The great prosperity of his friend and ally, he said, caused him foreboding instead of joy, for he knew that the gods were envious, and he desired for those he loved alternate good and ill fortune. He had never heard of any one who was successful in all his enterprises that did not meet with calamity in the end. He therefore counselled Polycrates to do what the gods had not yet done, and bring some misfortune on himself. His advice was that he should select the treasure he most valued and could least bear to part with, and throw it away so that it should never be seen again. By this voluntary sacrifice he might avert involuntary loss and suffering.

This advice seemed wise to the despot, and he began to consider which of his possessions he could least bear to lose. He settled at length on his signet-ring, an emerald set in gold, which he highly valued. This he determined to throw away where it could never be recovered. So, having one of his fifty-oared vessels manned, he put to sea, and when he had gone a long distance from the coast he took the ring from his finger and, in the presence of all the sailors, tossed it into the waters.

This was not done without deep grief to Polycrates. He valued the ring more highly than ever, now that it lay on the bottom of the sea, irretrievably lost to him, as he thought; and he grieved for days thereafter, feeling that he had endured a real misfortune, which he hoped the gods might accept is a compensation for his good luck.