History

The island of Samos prospered during the reign of the Tyrant Polycratis around 550 B.C. According to Herodotus Samos became “first among Greeks and Barbarians”. Polycratis with the aid of his two brothers succeeded in becoming Tyrant although later, by eliminating even his own brothers who had helped him managed to build …

Polycrates: powerful tyrant of Samos between 540 and 522 BCE. His downfall shocked the Greek world. Samos is a Greek island, situated just off the Asian coast, close to Miletus. This was a Greek city too, but it belonged, like the other towns of Asia Minor, to the realm of …