3.45.4
Polycrates took the children and wives of the townsmen who were subject to him and shut them up in the boathouses, with intent to burn them and the boathouses too if their men should desert to the returned Samians.
ch. 46
3.46.1
When the Samians who were expelled by Polycrates came to Sparta, they came before the ruling men and made a long speech to show the greatness of their need. But the Spartans at their first sitting answered that they had forgotten the beginning of the speech and could not understand its end.
3.46.2
After this the Samians came a second time with a sack, and said nothing but this: “The sack wants flour.” To this the Spartans replied that they were over-wordy with “the sack”; note but they did resolve to help them.
ch. 47
3.47.1
The Lacedaemonians then equipped and sent an army to Samos, returning a favor, as the Samians say, because they first sent a fleet to help the Lacedaemonians against Messenia; but the Lacedaemonians say that they sent this army less to aid the Samians in their need than to avenge the robbery of the bowl which they had been carrying to Croesus and the breastplate which Amasis King of Egypt had sent them as a gift.
3.47.2
This breastplate had been stolen by the Samians in the year before they took the bowl; it was of linen, decked with gold and cotton embroidery, and embroidered with many figures;
3.47.3
but what makes it worthy of wonder is that each thread of the breastplate, fine as each is, is made up of three hundred and sixty strands, each plainly seen. It is the exact counterpart of that one which Amasis dedicated to Athena in Lindus.
ch. 48
3.48.1
The Corinthians also enthusiastically helped to further the expedition against Samos. For an outrage had been done them by the Samians a generation before this expedition, about the time of the robbery of the bowl.
3.48.2
Periander son of Cypselus sent to Alyattes at Sardis three hundred boys, sons of notable men in Corcyra, to be made eunuchs. The Corinthians who brought the boys put in at Samos; and when the Samians heard why the boys were brought, first they instructed them to take sanctuary in the temple of Artemis,
3.48.3
then they would not allow the suppliants to be dragged from the temple; and when the Corinthians tried to starve the boys out, the Samians held a festival which they still celebrate in the same fashion; throughout the time that the boys were seeking asylum, they held nightly dances of young men and women to which it was made a custom to bring cakes of sesame and honey, so that the Corcyraean boys might snatch these and have food.
3.48.4
This continued to be done until the Corinthian guards left their charge and departed; then the Samians took the boys back to Corcyra.
ch. 49
3.49.1
If after the death of Periander, the Corinthians had been friendly towards the Corcyraeans, they would not have taken part in the expedition against Samos for this reason. But as it was, ever since the island was colonized, they have been at odds with each other, despite their kinship.
3.49.2
For these reasons then the Corinthians bore a grudge against the Samians.
Periander chose the sons of the notable Corcyraeans and sent them to Sardis to be made eunuchs as an act of vengeance; for the Corcyraeans had first begun the quarrel by committing a terrible crime against him.
