A Tale of Three Tyrants (Herodotus Bk 3, Part 2)

We now explore the madness of Cambyses, the Samian tyrant Polykrates, and good old Periander, the tyrant of Corinth. It's a tyrant heavy episode y'all but perhaps Herodotus is asking us to consider power and how it affects people? That doesn't seem relevant in any way whatsoever to what is happening in our current day and age, no not at all. AVAILABLE NOW! The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Sources: Herodotus' Histories, translated by Tom Holland. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/grouptrip.

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• 2:40Speaker 01

  Hello, all you wonderful people, and welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby. It's your resident history nerd, Michaela Panglish, back to continue our explorations through Herodotus's histories. Can I just say how much I'm enjoying this series with you all? Like, I've interacted with a lot of Herodotus because that's what they make you do in a classics degree, but I've never interacted with Herodotus at the level and volume as I am with this series. And, oh, boys, he's just so much more delightful as a whole than merely his parts. I love getting to spend more time with an author than I normally do, and as Herodotus doesn't cover the things I tend to be extra interested in, I just never got around to reading

• 3:22Speaker 01

  him as a whole. But now I get to with you all, and I am so pleased that I get to do this. Like, wow, this is my job. Thank you all so very, very much for being interested. Okay, that's enough of me being an absolute dork about it all. I know you all understand, but we should really get into the history of it all.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  A Tale of Three Tyrants, Herodotus, Book Three, Part Two.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Last week, we were introduced to the moves that Cambyses, Cyrus's son, was making. This started largely with his movement into Egypt, so of course, the second book makes more sense now. We simply had to know about Egypt's history to understand how it fit into the greater scheme of it all. But Cambyses made his way into Egypt, tried his best to humiliate Semenitus, and eventually did with Semenitus, his old friend. He started further campaigns into Africa in order to extend his empire. We ended with his return to Memphis, where the people were celebrating the manifestation of Apis in a newborn calf. Cambyses, of course, I mean, to put it very lightly, dismissed this entirely and killed the poor little guy. And there were

• 4:57Speaker 01

  consequences, of course. Oh, how the conscience shall quench, which is where we shall pick it all up today. To start, Cambyses went mad, though apparently this wasn't a terribly big change from his behavior beforehand. His brother Smurtus was the first to feel the effects of his madness. Him and Cambyses had been the exact same brothers of the exact same parents. And at this moment in time, Smurtus was in Persia, as he had been sent away from Egypt. Cambyses was worried about his brother, jealous, you could even say, since Smurtus was the only one who managed to draw the bow given to them by the Ethiopian king. Cambyses had a dream, a dream that a messenger arrived saying that Smurtus was sitting on the throne of Persia.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Of course, this could only mean that Smurtus was plotting against him, and so he must be dealt with. He sent his best bud, most trustworthy pal, Praxaspeis, to Persia to kill Smurtus, because, of course, this is what you do. This was done, and how it was done is contested. Some say Praxaspeis took Smurtus on a hunting trip and got the job done there. Others that he took him to the Red Sea and drowned him. Regardless, Smurtus was now dead. The next person Cambyses went after was his sister. Now, we aren't given a name, because of course we aren't. Don't you know that women only exist in their relation to the men around them, or only named when they

• 6:20Speaker 01

  do extraordinary things? Well, he killed his sister, and this is the story of that. This sister also shared both the same parents with him, and was also his wife, which was actually unusual at this time, for the Persians were not in the habit of marrying their siblings. But Cambyses did, and that's because he was so enamored with another sister. Yes, that's right, another sister. He, and I quote, passionately lusted after another of his sisters, and had to find a way to make this whole marriage thing possible. He summoned the royal judges and asked if there were any laws that would get in the way of his wishes. Well, as you might guess, they didn't want to get in his way, so they went back and looked over all the laws. They came back with

• 7:05Speaker 01

  this response. They could not find a law that said a brother was obliged to marry his sister, but they also found a law that said that the Persian king could do whatever the hell he wanted to do. So, hey, live your best life, Cambyses. So he went and married this one sister, and then a little while later, married the other sister, the first sister we heard about, who went with him to Egypt and he then killed. And why did he kill her? Well, Herodotus gives us two accounts, though these are merely stories. First, the account from the Greeks. Cambyses, in all his horrifiable glory, threw a lion cub and a young dog into a ring to fight, because I guess that was fun for him. The puppy was losing, and the puppy's brother was watching,

• 7:49Speaker 01

  and managed to break his lead and make his way into the ring. Once there, the two managed to kill the lion cub together. At seeing this, his wife, sister-wife, cried. And when Cambyses asked her why she was so upset about what happened, she said that she was reminded of Smurtus, the way the puppy came to help the other, and all she could think now that Smurtus was dead was that Cambyses had no one to come to help him. The Egyptians have another account. See, they say that they were at a meal together, and his wife took a lettuce leaf. She pulled all of the leafy bits off of it until it was just a stem, and then turned to her husband and asked him if he thought it was more beautiful full of leaves or stripped bare. He said, "When it was

• 8:32Speaker 01

  full of leaves." And she responded, quote, "And what have you done if not stripped bare the house of Cyrus, so that it precisely resembles this lettuce?" He then went after her, and she was pregnant, had a miscarriage, and then died herself.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  These were the effects of his madness, though Herodotus does claim that perhaps this was just how Cambyses was. It was claimed that he was sick from birth, that he was afflicted with a sacred disease, as the Greeks called epilepsy. And perhaps this affected his mind as well. Of course, there are other incidents, because there couldn't just be one or two. There has to be significantly more to justify all of the insanity. One day, he was hanging out with Praxaspius, his best bud, and asked him what the Persians said about him. Praxaspius responded, saying that they thought the absolute best about him, except when it came to one thing, and that was his drinking. He simply drank too much wine. Cambyses was infuriated

• 9:32Speaker 01

  by this response because, well, that's not what the other guys have been telling him. All of his advisors, including Chrysus, good old Chrysus, couldn't stop singing his praises. They'd all said that he was so much better than his father. Chrysus, though, added the caveats that he wasn't quite as good, because he had yet to have a son as amazing as him. So Cyrus had beat him there. Cambyses was raging to Praxaspius. He wasn't mad? How dare Praxaspius say that he was mad? Well, actually, Praxaspius said that the Persians said he drank too much wine, but whatever, that doesn't prove the point anyways. Cambyses yells, "Look, do you see a son standing over there, the one I appointed to pour wine for court? I'm going to shoot him. And if I shoot him in the heart, then whatever the

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Persians say is nonsense, and I'm not mad. If I miss, then, okay, you're right." And he whips out his bow, draws it, and shoots the young boy. Immediately, he orders the servants to open the boy's body and see where the arrow hit. Doing this, they found that the arrow hit the boy right in the heart. And Cambyses laughs, instantly happy, saying to Praxaspius, "See? I'm not mad. How could I be mad and hit my mark?" Praxaspius knew that Cambyses was mad at this point, and knew that he couldn't fight him, so he calmly responded, "Of course. Not even a guard could hit his mark with such accuracy." This is

• 10:58Speaker 01

  another instance of Cambyses's madness. There was another small account of Cambyses charging twelve high-class Persians with some crime, not mentioned, and then having them buried alive headfirst. At this point, Chrysus felt it best if he speaks with Cambyses. He was an advisor of Cyrus's after his capture, and Cyrus had charged him with offering Cambyses criticism and advice once he was gone. Chrysus goes to Cambyses and says, "Lord, you are following youthful ambitions too much, giving them free rein of your actions. It would be wiser to keep them under tighter control. Get a grip of yourself, young man. You are killing your fellow citizens on charges that mean nothing, made up. If you keep acting

• 11:43Speaker 01

  like this, the Persians will eventually rise up against your tyrannical ways." As you might all be able to guess, Cambyses did not care for this one bit. He snapped back. "You, Chrysus? You think you are fit to give me advice? You who lost your country, you who on your advice sent my father to his death at the hands of the Maasaietai? You are incompetent, and I am done letting you stick around to give me bad advice." He then grabbed his bow, ready to shoot Chrysus dead where he stood, but Chrysus ran off. Cambyses then ordered his servants to put Chrysus to death. The servants were familiar with Cambyses and all his mad ways, and captured Chrysus and put him in hiding. He

• 12:27Speaker 01

  would either calm down and want Chrysus back, or he wouldn't, and they could simply kill the man then. This was the right move. Eventually, Cambyses did calm down and wished that Chrysus hadn't been put to death. The servants brought Chrysus to him, and how delighted Cambyses was by this. Thank God Chrysus wasn't actually killed, but, oh, and this is a big but, the servants went against his wishes. And that was ultimately the wrong move by them. So he just had them all put to death, which is reasonable, I guess. Herodotus tells us more. While in Memphis, Cambyses would break into tombs to look at the corpses. He even

• 13:08Speaker 01

  went to the shrine of Hefestes and would laugh at the image of the god. Herodotus tells us that these Phoenicians had statues called the pataiki, which the note section says are apotropic devices in the shape of dwarves, which would be placed on the prowls of Phoenician ships. The statue of Hefestes resembled these pataiki. He also entered the shrine of the Kebiri, a father, mother, and son trinity that is also worshipped on Samothrace. Well, only the priest is allowed to enter the sanctuary, and Cambyses completely disregarded this, more evidence for his madness. At this point, I feel like we've just been beaten over the head with the various examples of madness that Cambyses displays. Herodotus wants

• 13:52Speaker 01

  to make it pretty clear to us how wide-reaching this madness falls, and that it doesn't just affect his family and other Persians, but it affects other cultures and people. I find this part really interesting because of the way it interacts with cultural, hmm, borrowing, cultural respect, you know, when you are a guest in another country. I just, this is a really interesting part of Herodotus. He then goes on to give us an analogy, and I quote, "Just suppose that someone proposed to the entirety of mankind that a selection

• 14:32Speaker 01

  of the very best practices be made from the sum of human custom. Each group of people, after carefully sifting through the customs of other peoples, would surely choose its own. Everyone believes his own customs to be far and away the best. From this, it follows that only a madman would think to jeer at such matters." End quote. Herodotus is making something very clear to us all, that all peoples, their cultures, their customs, must be respected for the mere fact that the care and respect of one's culture is universal. You wouldn't want others to treat your own culture with disrespect, so you better approach

• 15:11Speaker 01

  others with, you know, the exact same attitude. When in Rome, to do otherwise would be mad. It would be hypocritical.

• 15:32Liv Albert?

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• 17:57Speaker 00

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• 18:45Speaker 01

  We move on from this point in time to instead look at Polycrates, the son of Aikos and tyrant of Samos. He had managed to topple the government there and then took the city, splitting it amongst him and his two brothers, Pentagonotus and Silosin. However, he didn't want to share a rule with his brothers because, I mean, who does? And he has Pentagonotus put to death and exiles Silosin. After this, he decided he needed allies, so he struck a deal with Amasus. You remember him? Semenitis, his father? Yeah, they became good buds and did all the things that good buds did, like send each other gifts. It quickly became apparent that Polycrates actually was pretty good at what he did,

• 19:28Speaker 01

  and maybe just had a bit of luck on his side, because whatever he set his mind to ended with success. He took many islands and mainland cities and managed to defeat the lesbians at sea who had set their fleet to help the Mylisions, but now they were his prisoners. Amasus was impressed, but also worried because luck doesn't last forever and surely at some point, things will go terribly wrong. So he sends a letter to his dear friend with some advice. "Friend, I'm so happy to hear that you are doing so well and finding success in everything you do. I'm glad to call you a friend. However, I do have some worries for this luck cannot last forever. The gods will get jealous at some point. It's best to live a life that generally goes great,

• 20:13Speaker 01

  but every once in a while, things go bad? Things can go great, but the greater things go, the worse the ending will be. So this is my advice for you. Find the thing you love the most, that you hold the most dear to yourself and toss it away while no one will ever come across it."

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Polycrates received this message and thought to himself, "That isn't a bad idea." He had a signet ring, a ring that he wore every day without end, that was made by the Samian Theodora, son of Telikles. He had a pentaconter, which is just a giant ship manned by fifty men, set up and rode out into the open sea. Once he reached a place sufficiently far from land and as remote as he could make it, he tossed his ring into the sea in front of everyone on board. They then returned to Samos, and he went to his room to cry, because apparently it really did mean that much to him. Well, a couple of days later, a fisherman arrived at the palace because when he was out and about doing his fisherman things, he had pulled in this beautiful fish, truly stunning and always possible.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  And because it was so beautiful, the fisherman thought to himself, "Hey, this would be a great thing to give to the tyrant." Polycrates thought this was a pretty nice thing of the guy to do and responded to the fisherman, "Wow, what a wonderful thing you have done. You have my gratitude. Come eat with us this evening. We shall enjoy your catch." At that, the fish was taken off to the kitchen to be cleaned and prepared for cooking. But when it was sliced open by the servants, what was found in the stomach was the ring that Polycrates had blown into the sea. The servants brought the ring to Polycrates, who was so stunned by what happened, he immediately sent a letter to Amasus to tell him of his good fortune. Well, Amasus knew what would happen. This man had such good fortune that eventually his tides would turn,

• 22:01Speaker 01

  and it would not be a pretty picture in the slightest. He immediately sent a herald off to Samos to tell his friend that, you know what? It's time for this friendship to end. Oof, friendship breakups, they're the worst, aren't they? But he didn't want to feel the pain of Polycrates's eventual fall once it occurred.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Well, this is the Polycrates that the Lacedaemonians were launching a campaign against. A faction on Samos had sent out a missive to them, "Please help," it said, and they decided to answer it. The reason for this was thus: This was the time when Cambyses was preparing his campaign on Egypt. Polycrates, without getting counsel from the Samians, sent a message to Cambyses telling him to request troops from him. Cambyses, of course, loved this idea and sent the message off. "Please give me a naval task force to help me take Egypt." Polycrates rounded up forty warships manned by Samians and sent them to Cambyses with the request that he never return them. Well, there are stories about what happened to these Samians.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Some say that they never made it to Egypt, while others say that they did in fact make it there. However the story goes, they make their way back to Samos where Polycrates goes to meet them with his fleet. The battle was fought and the exiles won on sea. When they landed on Samos, however, they couldn't beat the land forces that were there. So they left and went to ask the Lacedaemonians for help, which is different from the earlier story, but that's typically Herodotus. Some believe, however, that they did beat the land forces. But Herodotus says that can't be true, because then why would they sail to the Peloponnese? I mean, why would they send a letter? Whatever. The exiles made their way to Sparta and found whoever was in charge there. The Spartans' first response was to complain that they couldn't remember what the Samians were saying,

• 23:45Speaker 01

  and they didn't understand what they were getting at. So the Samians found a way to get a second audience, brought a sack, and didn't say a thing, except, "The sack needs barley meal." The Spartans said, "You didn't need to say sack," but then agreed that, yeah, they would help. What is the significance of this? I'm not totally sure, but hey, it's what Herodotus is saying and I'm just, I'm just recounting it to you guys. The Spartans got ready to head out and help them. Now, there were, and, and we shouldn't be surprised about this, um, different accounts as to why the Spartans did this. The Samians say that Spartans owed them a debt of gratitude for previous help fighting the Messenians.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  The Lacedaemonians, however, say that they did this because Creuses had stolen a mixing bowl and Amasus had stolen a breastplate. He tells us about the breastplate. It sounded neat, but we should presume that it was a pretty neat breastplate because why else would you be willing to go to war for it? Well, now we must talk about the Corinthians, because they are a part of this all as well. They heard about the campaign and went, "You know what? Love that. Let's go, we're coming." The reason for this was that they had been so terribly insulted by the Samians around the same time that the Lacedaemonians' mixing bowl was stolen. Periander was the tyrant of Corinth at this time. We, we have talked about him briefly in book one, mostly just recognizing that he was there and doing things.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Basically, we should be familiar with the name and who it's referring to. Periander had sent three hundred boys, the sons of the leading men of Corcyra, to Aliatus and Sardis. They would be castrated there. I don't know why, it doesn't say, let's just go with it. The Corinthians who were bringing the boys there made a stopover in Samos. But when the Samians found out about what was happening, they told the boys to go to the shrine of Artemis and take sanctuary. After this happened, they refused to not acknowledge the Corinthians who were trying to drag the boys away. And when the Corinthians tried to stop food from being brought to them, they instituted a new festival where unmarried boys and girls would dance, and the dancers would carry sesame and honeycakes around so that the boys could snatch them away and have food.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  The festival didn't end until the Corinthians got sick at all and took the boys back to Corcyra. Herodotus then goes on to tell us that it would have been fine and dandy had the Corinthians and Corsyrians been friends, which they really should have been, because they had shared kinship ties, um, since the beginning of it all. However, they really didn't like each other for whatever reason. In fact, they are very much on bad terms with each other. Basically, this gave the Corinthians ammo against the Samians. They didn't like them because of all this. But the Corsyrians are not Samians, so still, what is going on? Don't worry, Herodotus tells us. And also, am I saying Corsyrians, right? Corchirians? Corsyrians? Ugh. This is what happens when you read it too much and then you have to say it out loud.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  So, Periander had killed his wife Melissa because, I don't know. I'm just gonna roll my eyes and move on. He killed his wife, and she had given him two sons who were now seventeen and eighteen years old. Their mother's father, Prokleis, tyrant of Epidavros, loved them and sent for them to come be with him. When it was time for them to return home, he asked them, "Do you know, my boys, who it was that killed your mother?" The elder, quite frankly, didn't give a shit about this question, but the younger, Lycophon, well, he found the question so terribly painful that when he returned to Corinth, he refused to even see his father. He completely shut him out, wouldn't respond to his questions or ask any of his own,

• 27:20Speaker 01

  which of course pissed Periander off, who promptly threw his son out of the house, because that's the totally normal, sane thing one should do. Periander then went to his older son and asked him what the hell had happened when they were in Epidavros. His older son, because this guy just seems like so boring in every way possible, like he simply couldn't remember what the question was. "I simply cannot recall," he says.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Lidian, I'm assuming. This wasn't good enough for Periander. He wanted to know more, so he kept pushing his son until he finally remembered. "Oh, right," he says. "Yeah, yeah, he asked if we knew who killed mom." Periander was bothered by this, but not in all in a reasonable way, of course. No, why would we expect that? He sent a message to the people who had taken Lycophon in and ordered them to kick him out. Everywhere Lycophon went from that point on was short-lived. As pretty soon as he arrived, a message would come as well from Periander, telling them to kick the boy out. Eventually, Periander just made it straight up illegal for anyone to give his son shelter, that they would have to pay a fine to the god, which is absolutely total normal behavior and we shouldn't judge him for this at all.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  We should. We should always judge Periander, actually. Eventually, Lycophon got tired of trying to find a place he could live in peace, so he just went and hung out by the colonnades. After three days, he wasn't looking very good, probably smelled badly, but whatever. And Periander came on by. He finally managed to get his anger in check, you see, and he felt a semblance of sorry for his behavior.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  My son, he cries, would you rather live like this than live at home and just respect me, your father? You are a prince of the city of Corinth. You shouldn't be living the life of a beggar. This next sentence is just so delightful, I can't help but quote it. And make me the man who least deserves such treatment, the object of all your hostility and rage. Hello? Dad, is that you? Anyway, he goes on. I am also dealing with the difficulties of all this because, you know, I'm the guy who actually killed your mom, so I should really get the most pity because that's such a bummer for me. So let it go, come on home.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Lycophon literally just looks at his father and no expression on his face, or at least that's how I'm framing it, because all he says in response to this speech by his dad is, you owe the god a fine for having come into conversation with me. At this point, Periander was simply done. There was nothing more he could do to convince his son of how wonderful he was and his need to be pitied. So he sent Lycophon off to Corcyra, which was already under his own rule. And then he set out against Epidavros, felling the city and taking Procyles as captive, which shouldn't be surprising in the slightest. Time moved on because that's the way the world works in. Periander aged. He was no longer young and spry and simply couldn't manage the affairs of state the

• 30:25Speaker 01

  way he used to be able to. On top of all that, his eldest son still seemed to be a complete loser, just unable to muster a modicum of intelligence. So he couldn't inherit the throne of Corinth. He then realized what he had to do. He had to reach out to Lycophon and see if he was up to take over his father's position. So he sent a message to Corcyra, summoning Lycophon to Corinth to take the throne. Lycophon still had a bit of a judge, which I personally think is completely reasonable and justified in every way possible. And he didn't respond to the message.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  This didn't deter Periander, so he sent another message, but this one wasn't sent by any messenger. No, that wouldn't do, especially because Lycophon seemed completely undeterred by the messages so far. This time he had his daughter, Lycophon's sister, deliver the message. She isn't named, because of course she isn't. And at this point, this just seems to be a trend where we just don't really get to know daughters or sisters' names anymore. Don't ask me why, let's go with either misogyny, or perhaps they didn't actually exist at all and were merely a plot device, which if we're being totally honest is also misogyny. But what can we do? This is ancient Greece after all. So Lycophon's sister arrives and she looks at him.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  You stupid little idiot, she says, you know, if you don't go back, all that power will fall into another's hands? Is that what you want? Seriously, just return and you could have it for yourself. You're being so prideful, it's actually ridiculous. Just go home and take what is yours, you silly, silly dumb dumb, or you know, something along those lines. Anyways, Lycophon listened, but as we should expect, he said, no, I will not return while father is alive. She went back home and told Periander what Lycophon said. And I guess he was just sick of fighting because he sent a third message saying, okay, I'll leave for Corcyra, you can come to Corinth. Well, the Corcyrians heard about this and they didn't want Periander to come around,

• 32:30Speaker 01

  can't imagine why. Um, so instead they killed Lycophon, which is, um, I'm questioning the logic because now Periander has a reason to seek vengeance against them. But let's go back to the Lacedaemonians on Samos. They arrive and immediately put the city under siege. They attacked, they attacked the walls and started to scale the towers and such when Polycrates arrived with reinforcements. The Samians fought hard, setting an attack from the upper tower. And while they couldn't hold their own for a while, they were eventually pushed back by the Lacedaemonians.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  The Lacedaemonians would have eventually achieved their goals, says Herodotus, if they were anything like Archias and Lycopas. Who are these people? I mean, these are new names? Well, okay, um, doesn't tell us much, but let's go into it. So Archias and Lycopas had joined the Samians as they fled back into the city where, um, being cut off from escape. Um, they were killed. Herodotus then tells us that he was in Archias's, oh, that's a fun one to say, Archias's native village in Patana. Um, he met another Archias there, who was the son of Samius, um, and the grandson of uh, the original Archias. Archias the Younger, let's just go with that name for now.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Well, he felt the Samians were the best of any of the Greeks because, well, Archias the Elder had died a hero's death during the siege on Samos. For some reason, um, this, they allowed his son to be given the name of Samius or of Samos, essentially. And Archias the Elder was given burial, all paid for by the Samians. Samos was under siege for forty days total, but eventually the Lacedaemonians simply got bored of it all and headed back home. There is another account, which says that Polycrates made a mint, created a hoard of iron cor- coins which he had covered in gold leaf, which he then used to pay the Lacedaemonians off, which is, you know, a n- nice story, but what's the point of it all?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Well, the point is that this is the first time that any Lacedaemonians, any Dorian's really, launched a campaign against Asia. Now, all who's left is the Samian exiles, who couldn't stick around since they couldn't take the island for themselves and certainly didn't want to face, you know, death. Um, they left, they needed money, so they made their way to Siphnos, which was a very prosperous place. So prosperous that using only a tenth of their wealth, they commissioned a treasury at Delphi, rivaling any other there. During the construction of this building, they asked the Pythia if they would stay this prosperous, and she responded, well, whenever the town halls on Siphnos turn to

• 35:18Speaker 01

  white and the markets white of brow, then you will need someone shrewd to flag for you a battalion of wood and a herald of red. Their town hall and market were already made of peryan marble, um, which is, you know, a very popular place for marble and pretty white as is, but they simply couldn't make sense of the oracle, which is typical. Anyways, the Samian exiles arrived on Siphnos in wooden boats painted red. So maybe that has something to do with it all? Perhaps, I don't know. Not my first oracle, but I've been wrong before. The Samian exile sent a messenger to the Siphnians, asking for a loan of ten talents,

• 36:03Speaker 01

  which the Siphnians said no to. And then the exiles just started attacking the countryside, raiding it. The Siphnians went out to help the people in the countryside and were trapped by the Samian exiles, taken prisoner, and then used by the exiles to extort a hundred talents from them. So maybe they should have just taken the ten talent loan and, you know, that's perhaps what the oracle was about, but hindsight, am I right?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  The Samians continued to move along in the Aegean. Next, they took the island of Hydraea from the people of Hermione. Now, this is a very exciting part for me, um, even though it's very small and really is only this mention, um, and there's not much to it in any case. Um, but I don't know if any of you know, I have a complete love affair with Idrah. Um, it is quite possibly my favorite place in the world. I would love to just go live and die there, I'd love it that much. Um, especially because it feels like such an escape. There's no archaeological museum on the island, which may sound like a downside, and in some ways it is, and but, you know, there hasn't been much archaeological work done on the island generally.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  But the thing that this does is when I'm there, my brain truly gets to just turn off from work and school and all the life things, and I get to breathe in a way that I haven't since I was a child. Um, but that's honestly, that's enough about me and Hydra, and let's, let's talk about the Samians and Hydraea. Um, they left it to the people of Tre- Trozen. Um, that's it. Yep, that's, that's the entire mention. Anyways, they then make their way to Crete, where they found the Caidonia, and they managed to hang out there for a good long while, about five, six years. Um, and they were very prosperous, so much so that any of the shrines, temples, um, which exist there on the island in Herodotus's time, um, including the temple of Dictina, uh, were made by them.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Um, well, in the sixth year, they were defeated by the Aginatins because at some point the Aginatins and the Samians had a tiff in vengeance or whatnot. Herodotus then admits, um, that he's been talking a lot about Samos. Surprise. But that's only because they built such great wonders and we should know about them. There were three great construction projects, which included a very long tunnel through a mountain that was seven stages long and eight feet high and wide. And along its length was a great pipe where water was channeled to, to bring it to the nearby city. Uh, the second is a mole around the harbor, which reached twenty fathoms deep and was over two states in length.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Um, and finally, there was a temple, the largest of all. He doesn't tell us what temple, I'm gonna say that, he doesn't tell us what temple, just that there was a temple. Uh, the largest of all and its, its first architect was, uh, Rikus, the son of Philaeus Samian. And that's that, so thanks, Herodotus.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  That was a long one, but hey, sometimes we must know just about everything to understand the context of it all. Honestly, though, I feel that thing we ought to take from this section is the tyranny. We have talked on the show about the words for kings that the Greeks had. They had two, vasileos and tiranos. And while they both mean king, they have slightly different connotations. Vasileos is more hereditary. It's more connected to old families and lineage and the past and to land in some ways. It's used a lot in Homer.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  It's an old word. Tyrants, a tiranos is someone who seizes power for himself, seizes rule. I mean, we use tyrant a lot today to talk about someone who seizes power and has quite a heavy negative connotation. I would like to point out that that isn't always the case in antiquity. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I mean, honestly, kings generally don't have good reputations in antiquity. But there were lots of reasons why and how someone grabs the throne for themselves. Often tyrants gain their position because of the people. The people support them and that is how they are able to overthrow the

• 40:43Speaker 01

  old powers and gain their position. Tyrants can do quite nice things for the city. They're actually weirdly prosperous times for cities is when they're under the control of tyrants. The first time, I mean, it really depends. This feels like an episode, but that's something I should just write down and go back to one day. But often it's like they invest a lot in infrastructure and public works that a vasileus probably wouldn't really invest in. It really depends. But we have to zoom out with Herodotus, which can be a bit hard with all the tangents and the rambles and things that pop up in the histories. They

• 41:25Speaker 01

  may not seem important when they do, or they may, you know, seem just sort of like flyaway moments that last for, you know, 10 pages, but they are really important and part of the whole narrative. They serve a bigger purpose. You know, the past, first two chapters of Herodotus, or chapters, books of Herodotus, we've been talking a lot about kings and rulers of cities and a lot of them who were very power hungry and grabbing up power and land left, right, and center. So like, there's, there's a very heavy trend here in Herodotus. I mean, we're being honest all throughout history, but if we're talking about Herodotus,

• 42:09Speaker 01

  there's a very heavy trend about sort of the, I guess, the corruption of power and the abuse of power. You know, we just got off the madness of Cambyses and, you know, then we see Polycrates doing his own shit and Periander, who, you know, killed his wife and thinks he should be pitied for it. These are all really important things to note that this power, how power corrupts and is that Spider-Man? Oh, Tom Holland. Ah, Tom Holland. Okay, anyways, let's, I digress. Let's Talk About Myths, Baby is written and produced

• 42:51Speaker 01

  by Liv Albert. Michaela Pangorish is the Hermes to all your Olympians, the producer, co-host. Select music by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, a collection of creators that all strive to bring you accurate and reliable information on the ancient world. These include the wonderful friends at Movies We Dig, The Partial Historian, Sweet Bitter, and so much more. Get ad-free episodes and other fun things TBD by subscription to the Oracle Edition on Patreon at patreon.com/MythsBaby or via the link in the episode's description. Are you a scholar or academic or an expert in something from antiquity, ranging from Greece to Rome to Egypt to honestly anywhere

• 43:32Speaker 01

  in the Near East? We would love to have you on the show as a conversation guest. Go to mythsbaby.com/contact and fill out our podcast guest form. We want to hear from you, so please do reach out. Talk to you all next week. Bye.

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