Our author in his Third Book, relating the expedition of the Lacedaemonians against the tyrant Polycrates,
affirms, that the Samians think and say that the Spartans,
to recompense them for their former assistance against the
Messenians, both brought back the Samians that were banished, and made war on the tyrant; but that the Lacedaemonians deny this, and say, they undertook this design not
to help or deliver the Samians, but to punish them for
having taken away a cup sent by them to Croesus, and besides, a breastplate sent them by Amasis.1 And yet we
know that there was not at that time any city so desirous
of honor, or such an enemy to tyrants, as Sparta. For
what breastplate or cup was the cause of their driving the
Cypselidae out of Corinth and Ambracia, Lygdamis out of
[p. 341]
Naxos, the children of Pisistratus out of Athens, Aeschines
out of Sicyon, Symmachus out of Thasus, Aulis out of
Phocis, and Aristogenes out of Miletus; and of their overturning the domineering powers of Thessaly, pulling down
Aristomedes and Angelus by the help of King Leotychides?
—which facts are elsewhere more largely described. Now,
if Herodotus says true, they were in the highest degree
guilty both of malice and folly, when, denying a most honorable and most just cause of their expedition, they confessed that in remembrance of a former injury, and too
highly valuing an inconsiderable matter, they invaded a
miserable and afflicted people.
1 Herod. III. 47, 48.
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