POLYCRATES, tyrant of Samos (c. 535-515 B.c.). Having won popularity by donations to poorer citizens, he took advantage of a festival of Hera, which was being celebrated outside the walls, to make himself master of the city (about 535 B.C.). After getting rid of his brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson, who had at first shared his power, he established a despotism which is of great importance in the history of the island. He equipped a fleet of Ioo ships and so became master of the Aegean basin. This ascendancy he abused by numerous acts of piracy which made him notorious throughout Greece; but his real aim was the control of the archipelago and the mainland towns of Ionia. He maintained an alliance with Lygdamis of Naxos, and dedicated to Delos the island of Rheneia. He also defeated a coalition of two great naval powers of the Asiatic coast, Miletus and Lesbos. He made an alliance, probably commercial in object, with Amasis of Egypt. But the squadron he sent to Amasis' support, against
Cambyses of Persia, being composed of political opponents of Polycrates, suspected treachery and returned and attacked Poly crates. After a defeat by sea, Polycrates repelled an assault upon the walls, and subsequently withstood a siege by a joint armament of Spartans and Corinthians assembled to aid the rebels. He maintained his ascendancy until about 515, when Oroetes, the Persian governor of Lydia, who had been reproached for his failure to reduce Samos by force, lured him to the main land and put him to death by crucifixion.
Beside the political and commercial pre-eminence which he conferred upon Samos, Polycrates adorned the city with public works on a large scale. He was also a patron of letters; he col lected a library, and Anacreon lived at his court.