Editing Polycrates (section)

==Samos under Polycrates==
===Construction projects===
[[File:GR_Samos_Heraion_05_asb_16-08-2002.jpg|left|thumb|334x334px|Heraion, Samos]]
Under Polycrates the Samians developed an engineering and technological expertise to a level unusual in ancient Greece.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The rise of the Greeks|last=Grant|first=Michael|publisher=Scribners|edition=1st American|location=New York|pages=153–156}}</ref> In the midst of his account of Polycrates, Herodotus presents three astounding engineering works of the Samians. The first of these is an aqueduct in the form of a tunnel {{convert|1036|m|ft}} long which can still be seen and which is known as the [[Tunnel of Eupalinos]]. The tunnel was constructed by two teams tunnelling from opposite sides of a ridge who met in the middle with an error of only a few metres — a remarkable engineering feat for the time, and one which probably reflects the practical geometry skills which the Samians had learned from the Egyptians. Polycrates also sponsored construction of a large temple of [[Hera]], the [[Heraion of Samos|Heraion]], to which Amasis dedicated many gifts, and which at {{convert|346|ft|m}} long was one of the three largest temples in the Greek world, and he upgraded the [[Ancient harbour of Samos|harbour]] of his capital city (modern [[Pythagoreion|Pythagorion]]), ordering the construction of a deep-water mole nearly a quarter mile long, which is still used to shelter Greek fishing boats today.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=The lyric age of Greece|last=Burn|first=A. R.|publisher=Minerva|year=1968|location=St. Martin's Press|pages=314–318}}</ref> Although these projects are often associated with Polycrates on the strength of the passage of Herodotus, he is actually very vague about when these projects were carried out and what - if anything - they had to do with Polycrates.<ref>Carty (2015) 15</ref> Archaeological work has made the picture more complicated, suggesting that the Tunnel of Eupalinos may have been dug before his reign and that Polycrates continued projects that were already in course at the Heraion.

=== 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" />