Editing Polycrates (section)

=== Religious and cultural activities ===
One use to which Polycrates put his powerful navy was controlling the island of [[Delos]], one of the most important religious centres in Greece, control of which would bolster Polycrates' claim to be the leader of the [[Ionians|Ionian]] Greeks.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great|last1=Bury|first1=J. B.|last2=Mieggs|first2=Russell|publisher=Macmillan|year=1956|edition=3|location=London|pages=232–234}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> [[Thucydides]] reports that Polycrates chained Delos to the neighbouring island of [[Rhenaia]].<ref name="Thucydides 1.13, 3.104"/> In 522 BC Polycrates celebrated an unusual double festival in honour of the god [[Apollo]] of [[Delos]] and of [[Delphi]]; it has been suggested that the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]] to Apollo'', sometimes attributed to [[Cynaethus]] of Chios, was composed for this occasion.<ref>[[Suda]] sv Pythia kai Delia</ref><ref>[[Walter Burkert]], 'Kynaithos, Polycrates and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo' in ''Arktouros: Hellenic studies presented to B. M. W. Knox'' ed. G. W. Bowersock, W. Burkert, M. C. J. Putnam (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979), pp. 53–62.</ref>

Polycrates lived amid great luxury and spectacle and was a patron of the poets [[Anacreon]] and [[Ibycus]].<ref>[[Athenaeus]], ''Deipnosophistae'' 12.540c-d</ref><ref>See papyrus fragment of a poem by Ibycus that mentions Polycrates at [http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/VExhibition/finds/ibycus.html Oxyrhynchus Online]: ‘With them you too, Polycrates, shall have immortal fame for beauty as long as my song and fame endure.’</ref>  The philosopher [[Pythagoras]] was also on Samos during his reign but left for Croton about 531 BC, perhaps out of dissatisfaction with his dictatorship.<ref>[[Aristoxenus]] F16</ref><ref name=":0" /> He also attracted to his court, sometimes by offering generous subsidies, an array of prominent craftsmen and professionals from throughout the Greek world, including Eupalinos, the architect of the Tunnel, who was originally from [[Megara, Greece|Megara]], the famous physician Demodocus of Croton, Rhoikos the architect of the [[Heraion of Samos|Heraion]], and the master metal-worker Theodoros, who had made a famous silver bowl which [[Croesus]] dedicated at [[Delphi]] and which is described by Herodotus, and who also made the ring which was Polycrates' most treasured personal possession. Polycrates established a library on Samos, and showed a sophisticated approach to economic development, importing improved breeds of sheep, goats, and dogs from elsewhere in the Greek world.<ref name=":1" />