In contradistinction was Syloson, who neglected his administrative duties and spent his time instead in the company of his various flatterers, catamites and eunuchs. Together they would drink wine from Scianthus and Rhodes, watch trained puppies from Malta jump through hoops, the gyrations of ithyphallic dancers, and nude acrobats balance in headstands on the points of swords. He shaved away his beard and had his face painted to look like the goddess Aphrodite; he began to use a depilatory ointment, made from four parts quicklime and one part orpiment, on his legs and chest; and, for hours daily, he soaked his body in a large gilded tub perfumed with essence of crocus. He would steep his feet and legs in Egyptian unguents, have his thighs rubbed down with thick palm oil, his arms with sweet mint, eyebrows and hair with marjoram, and neck with essence of thyme. Extensive sums of money were expended on dainties, imported ostriches from Africa, fat eels from Rhegium and almonds from Cyprus. And if all this was not enough, he violated the chastity of a virgin, a priestess of Athena Ergane, and subsequently had the audacity to have her buried alive for violating her oaths.
He spent his days in sleep and his nights in revelry, devoting himself wholly to his appetites. Sometimes he would stay indoors for a whole week, without once leaving his house, without once being touched by a ray of the sun. He did not bother with religion, philosophy, hunting or athletics but seemed instead to believe that manhood was made up of pleated cloaks of richly-dyed wool and extravagant footwear.
He had a follower, Pison by name, an individual so small and thin that he looked as if a strong wind would blow him away; so diminutive indeed that Pythagoras, in a frivolous mood, had once remarked that, while all things in the universe are made up of atoms, atoms themselves are made up of Pisons;—and this Pison, this hypothetical particle of matter, who was in himself a catalogue of undesirable qualities, would, like some greedy shrew, eat daily twice his weight in food—comestibles smothered in rich sauces, sweet delicate things—whatever indeed could be found at his friend’s lavishly furnished table.
The two sat together, in a luxuriously furnished room, on soft bags of cloth filled with feathers, wine-filled drinking cups and platters of delicacies placed between them.
“This afternoon,” Pison said, “while going for a stroll, I saw a man digging his field, and the very sight made me feel as if all my bones were broken.”
“Well,” Syloson replied, languidly fingering a Phibalean fig, “just your telling me this story makes me feel as if an ox were standing on my shoulder.”
“Which one?”
“Oh, I am uncertain. . . . Maybe the left.”
“Are you sweating?”
Syloson bit into the fig, and chewing replied, “Possibly . . . if you see perspiration glistening my upper lip.”
Pison’s face assumed a look of great concern, almost panic and, without losing time, he cupped his hands around his mouth like a horn and shouted, “Iops, Zetes, come out you dirty slaves! Your master’s lip is exhausted from labour, his person demands the breath of cooling fans of feathers!”
Immediately there was heard from without the hurried sound of sandals coursing over handsomely tiled halls, and a moment later two anxious slaves presented themselves, each carrying an enormous fan of oil-of-civet-scented ostrich feathers. Iops fanned Syloson while Zetes, a lad with dreamy eyes, fanned Pison.
“But tell me, will your chef be serving fried caviar today?”
“Pison, you are surely the slimmest of pigs.”
VII.
Syloson was simply a fool; Pantagnotus was level-headed, cold, dangerous. For Polycrates, both were liabilities. In the middle of the night he had Pantagnotus abducted and taken to a country house where molten gold was poured down the man’s throat; the next day he had Syloson arrested and brought before him in fetters of the same metal.
“Brother,” he said, “when I see you here before me, bloated and drugged with cheese, I must confess that my disgust nearly outweighs my compassion. Look at you, with your face as hairless as that of a woman! This in itself is a gross and clear sign that you are on a campaign of vice and are involving yourself in activities inconsistent with a beard.”
Syloson pouted. Polycrates continued:
“While pampering your vile body, living in a disgraceful manner, you have neglected all those duties which position and rank require of you. Your laziness has reached disgusting proportions. You have become frightened by the sun and live by night, like some lycanthrope, your blood inflamed by the moon. You live like a woman instead of a man, keep company strictly with men who are no men. I have even heard that you keep a fool named Pison around to help you chew your food.”
“It is not true; I chew my food and he chews his.”
“Syloson . . . you will chew your food still. . . . You will leave this island with your life, and gold; and yearly I will send you more gold, enough to pay off companions and stuff your paunch with sauced-up jays and foxes. But if you ever show yourself on this island again, your stipend will be terminated . . . and you will be put to death.”
The next day Syloson was taken from the island in a small craft, frowning Pison4 by his side, the gulls circling overhead, eyeing that latter, as if they might swoop down and carry him to their nests; and not long after, in Polycrates’ stables, a mare was foaled with cloven hooves.
VIII.
Polycrates married Xenocleia, the daughter5 of Lygdamis, the tyrant of Naxos, from whom he obtained mercenaries; and he obtained mercenaries also from Bottiaea, Illyria, Crete and even as far away as Libya. He hired into his service hundreds of Sythic bowmen and Thracian peltasts, as well as many scribes, diviners, interpreters and skilled intelligence officers,—these latter endowed with full knowledge of hand signals, how to send messages by arrows, and able to disguise themselves as dogs, goats and sheep.
He levied troops from Myus, Ephesus, Priene and Icaros; and of course many from Samos, including one-thousand archers—always careful to have the number of his soldiers equally divided between natives and mercenaries, in order to keep the power of his armed forces evenly balanced and thus have a reasonable chance at suppressing rebellion from either group.
Around his own person he kept a picked corps of soldiers, those who were especially loyal to him and stood out for their skill in arms. These he equipped superbly with engraved bronze breastplates and well-fitting Illyrian helmets decorated with crests of horsehair, and trained and educated them for his purposes. He made them learn the various principles and methods pertaining to the affairs of combat, and then study every noteworthy battle and coup that had taken place for the last five-hundred years. They chanted songs of war and blood, so their minds were filled with enthusiasm for battle. He gave them plots of land, presents of grain, silver drinking goblets and crowns of gold.
At meal time, before he touched a dish, he made sure that it was approved by his praegustator. His private secretary, Maeandrius, personally watched over the cooks and was under instruction to do all he could to make their lives happy so that they would have no cause for sedition. Polycrates had three properties where he would pass his time: his palace, a mansion in the heart of Samos, and an estate some short distance from the city. And in each of these, three times a day banquets were prepared, though the tyrant himself would not let it be known, until the last moment, where he would dine. And yet sometimes he would dine at none of these, but simply appear at the house of a friend, or even some citizen with whom he was not acquainted, and demand a meal.
IX.
The island was covered with excellent timber, and with this he had a fleet of one-hundred ships built, obtuse-prowed biremes, each eighty feet long. They were constructed to act as both warship and trader, having every one a sail for speed—a single mast which could be taken down before battle and left on shore—and two banks of oars for docking and manoeuvring. Every ship was crewed by a captain, four officers, ten archers and a deck crew of sixteen men, which included sailors and carpenters, and then there were fifty oarsmen.
After drilling his soldiers vigorously in these boats, he plunged a chariot and six white horses into the sea, as a sacrifice to Poseidon, and commenced his naval campaigns. First he attacked the island of Rhenea, which, due to his numerical superiority, he easily overcame and forthwith dedicated to the Delian Apollo, binding it to Delos with a great chain. He then set out against Syros; the people resisted and, when he overcame them, he for the most part sold them into slavery or gave them, women and children, as gifts to his soldiers; then by assault he took several towns upon the mainland (Teos, Myndus, Pidyma); he attacked Miletus, an enemy for many years. The Lesbians (who had long boasted of the strongest fleet in the Aegean basin) came to their aid with forty-five vessels, light craft, with which they were able to thrust suddenly through the Samian line. Polycrates ordered his navy to surround that of the Lesbians, thus making their superior agility useless; and the Samian ships were higher, so their missiles fell more effectually; some Lesbian ships were rammed and sunk, some ripped open, some set on fire and burned, while others were boarded from all sides, the sea filled with broken oars, spars and carnage; and now no prisoners taken, them slain, perishing all, blossoms of manhood swallowed by the whirlpool of bright blue waves, or some bodies washed up and dashed upon the rocks. The Samians now turned toward Lesbos; attacked, raided their harbour and sunk the rest of their fleet, pillaging and setting fire to the cities, to Pyrrha, Eresus, Antissa, Methymna and Mytilene (the reedy laughter of children extinguished beneath the furious roar of war); and they took away the strongest citizens bound, as slaves, while demanding ransom for many others. . . . . . . After this Polycrates sacrificed an entire ship to Hera, burning it to the ground in front of her temple.
He taxed all ships which passed through his now greatly extended territorial waters, demanded yearly tribute from those cities he had conquered and sold protection to adjacent states. He committed acts of piracy, by open force robbed valuables from all, made no distinction between enemy and friend. “A friend,” he said, “is more grateful if you return what you have taken from him, than if you were lenient from the beginning.” Under Polydor6, a portion of his fleet attacked a contingency of Spartan vessels and from them took a huge bronze vase intended as a gift for King Croesus, a vase of three-hundred amphorae, covered with figures of bulls and lions all round the rim, and this was deposited as an offering at the Heraion.
. . . and the mothers of those Samians who had been slain in battle he allocated to the more wealthy citizens, directing them to take care of the women and look upon them as their own, while the sons he had buried at public expense, their names engraved on a pillar in front of the temple of Pallas Athena.
X.
With the newfound sources of revenue he brought enormous wealth to the island, and was quick to turn it to account, expending vast sums on creating prodigious and useful public works.
In Megara there lived a hydraulic engineer by the name of Eupalinus, who had gained great fame for building at that city an aqueduct and fountainhouse of wonderful beauty and usefulness, with thirty-five octagonal columns of poros stone and walls of limestone blocks in the isodomic system. Polycrates, with promises of high pay, invited him to Samos where, over the course of the next ten years, he constructed a tunnel to supply water to the capital city—a magnificent piece of engineering, a truly extraordinary feat—almost a mile long, carrying the main aqueduct, originating from a copious spring, through Mt. Ampelus. Eupalinus applied his geometric calculations and laid out his line (how difficult considering that from no place on the mountain could the two proposed endpoints of the project be at the same time seen). Two teams of labourers perforated the mountain, working simultaneously from either end. After advancing a designated distance, each team turned somewhat to the right. Then the northern digging team turned sharply to the left, in order to guarantee an intersection with the line of the southern digging team, which occurred after all those years, with cries of astonishment and delight. The actual channel for the water was then cut, with great accuracy, below the first tunnel and the internal surfaces were then covered with polygonic stone masonry and clay pipes were placed in a wide channel on the floor. The project was completed with over the earth works; water tanks, wells and channels.
XI.
On one side of the city was a bay, on the other a large hill; thus it was fortified by nature, and Polycrates did all he could to better these fortifications by art. Eupalinus constructed a mole in the sea, which went all the way round the harbour. It was nearly twenty fathoms deep, and over a quarter of a mile long. To design and oversee work on the city walls, Periphoretus Artemon7, son of Cyce, was called in.
Artemon invented machines that could hoist great weights; though once they were built he would only watch them work from a distance, for fear they would malfunction and their heavy loads fall and crush him. He had himself brought forward on a stretcher and in a reclining position he would examine the various works and engines that demanded his attention, lazily directing or upbraiding the foremen as occasion required. They would listen to his lisping voice with mingled disgust and awe and then carry out his instructions to the letter, for no man doubted that Periphoretus Artemon was a genius in the art of self-preservation. He fortified the city with over seven miles of wall, using a minimum number of angles, because angles, when all is said and done, offer a certain degree of cover to the attacking enemy, as upon their approach they cannot be seen by everyone upon the walls—and also battering rams can break angles with infinitely greater ease than rounded surfaces. The walls he built broad enough so that two armed men could pass each other with ease, and every one-hundred metres he put a gap in the wall of ten metres, which he had bridged with unsecured planks, so that, if an attacking enemy took one section of the fortifications, the planks need merely be pulled away and they could not advance to the next. The walls had thirty-five towers and twelve gates and loopholes were also built into them by which arrows could be dispelled. Around them slaves, mainly those garnered from Lesbos, were made to dig a moat in front of which palisades were built . . . . . . He fortified the acropolis . . .
. . . . . . Inside of the walls themselves a park was built. The walkways were first dug out and fitted with drains; then they were filled with charcoal and over this sand was layered, so that these paths were always without puddles and could be walked on comfortably throughout the year. An artificial hill was made, with a corkscrew path to go up by. A great number of trees, pines and firs, were also planted in the park, not only for their shade and beauty, but also because, in times of siege they would provide a great source of firewood, a thing very hard to come by when the people’s ability to forage is hampered.
XII.
Epistle:
Anacreon to Polycrates
To my Lord,
It is noontime now, and I have been up since dawn, writing rainbow-hued verses, verses dyed not only with the dark-blue juice of the vine, but stained with orange sunrise, green sap of emeralds and tainted yellow with the shells of frozen flames; and now with the same quivering pen I am writing to you, just to greet and ask after you. I long to see your face so very much! When able, I will have the verses copied out and send them on, and hopefully see you in person not much after that, for I am growing weary of Smyrna. Greet my Lady your wife.
Epistle:
Polycrates to Amasis
My very dear friend Amasis, I am sending this packet of hymns by a most special messenger. His name is Pythagoras and he is one of the smartest fellows here in Samos, though somewhat odd, as he drinks no wine and eats no living thing, but subsists on barley paste, grapes, figs and cheese. For breakfast he will take nothing more than cucumbers and wild honey, while for dinner he considers sea-onions to be the greatest delicacy. But though rather mad in matters of diet, he still suffers significantly from the heat of brilliance, having made great progress in advancing the science of music and constructing marvellous theories regarding the fate of the soul. In any case, he is very eager to learn a thin
g or two from you Egyptians, so if you could have one of your scribes show him around, it would be most appreciated. I commend him to you my much-missed friend. By the bye: do you have a copy of Athothes’ Workings of the Eye? I am most eager to get my hands on it.
Epistle:
Democedes8 to Polycrates, greetings
I have just received your letter and, though I have many pressing duties, am now taking a moment to reply to one so prestigious as yourself. That you are prone to take chills I am sorry to hear. My best professional advice is to avoid wandering about your apartments with bare feet.
So, you want me for your personal physician? Well, there is nothing I would like better, provided that we can arrive at a financial arrangement that seems suitable to my position in life. Before arriving at Athens the Aeginetians paid me, at the public’s expense, one talent per annum. Now that I am here, the Athenians pay me a hundred minae. So you might ponder what sort of offer you are willing to make to seduce me from this beautiful and noble city, where I am by no means discontent.
Epistle:
Polycrates to Democedes, greetings
I will not make you yawn with a long prologue. Come at once, I have aching toes on my left foot. Two talents await you, best of Crotonian physicians.
Epistle:
Polycrates to Anacreon
The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children Page 2