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And the men of Crotona, as Timæus says, after they had destroyed the people of Sybaris, began to indulge in luxury; so that their chief magistrate went about the city clad in a purple robe, and wearing a golden crown on his head, and wearing also white sandals. But some say that this was not done out of luxury, but owing to Democedes the physician, who was by birth a native of Crotona; and who having lived with Polycrates the tyrant of Samos, and having been taken prisoner by the Persians after his death, was taken to the king of Persia, after Orœtes had put Polycrates to death. And Democedes, having cured Atossa, the wife of Darius, and daughter of Cyrus, who had a complaint in her breast, asked of her this reward, to be sent back to Greece, on condition of returning again to Persia; and having obtained his request he came to Crotona. And as he wished to remain there, when some Persian laid hold of him and said that he was a slave of the king of Persia, the Crotonians took him away, and having stripped the Persian of his robe, dressed the lictor of their chief magistrate in it. And [p. 837] from that time forward, the lictor, having on the Persian robe, went round with the chief magistrate to all the altars every seventh day; not for the sake of luxury or insolence, but doing it for the purpose of insulting the Persians. But after this the men of Crotona, as Timæus says, attempted to put an end to the Assembly at Olympia, by appointing a meeting for games, with enormously rich prizes, to be held at exactly the same time as the Olympian games; but some say that the Sybarites did this.

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