herodotus

sheds, keeping them ready so that, if it should prove that hissubjects deserted to the side of the returning exiles, he might burnthem with the sheds.46. When those of the Samians who had been driven out by Polycratesreached Sparta, they were introduced before the magistrates and spokeat length, being urgent in their request. The magistrates however atthe first introduction replied that they had forgotten the thingswhich had been spoken at the beginning, and did not understand thosewhich were spoken at the end. After this they were introduced a secondtime, and bringing with them a bag they said nothing else but this,namely that the bag was in want of meal; to which the others repliedthat they had overdone it with the bag.[38] However, they resolved tohelp them. 47. Then the Lacedemonians prepared a force and madeexpedition to Samos, in repayment of former services, as the Samianssay, because the Samians had first helped them with ships against theMessenians; but the Lacedemonians say that they made the expeditionnot so much from desire to help the Samians at their request, as totake vengeance on their own behalf for the robbery of the mixing-bowlwhich they had been bearing as a gift to Crœsus,[39] and of thecorslet which Amasis the king of Egypt had sent as a gift to them; forthe Samians had carried off the corslet also in the year before theytook the bowl; and it was of linen with many figures woven into it andembroidered with gold and with cotton; and each thread of this corsletis worthy of admiration, for that being itself fine it has in it threehundred and sixty fibres, all plain to view. Such another as thismoreover is that which Amasis dedicated as an offering to Athene atLindos.48. The Corinthians also took part with zeal in this expeditionagainst Samos, that it might be carried out; for there had been anoffence perpetrated against them also by the Samians a generationbefore[40] the time of this expedition and about the same time as therobbery of the bowl. Periander the son of Kypselos had despatchedthree hundred sons of the chief men of Corcyra to Alyattes at Sardisto be made eunuchs; and when the Corinthians who were conducting theboys had put in to Samos, the Samians, being informed of the story andfor what purpose they were being conducted to Sardis, first instructedthe boys to lay hold of the temple of Artemis, and then they refusedto permit the Corinthians to drag the suppliants away from the temple:and as the Corinthians cut the boys off from supplies of food, theSamians made a festival, which they celebrate even to the present timein the same manner: for when night came on, as long as the boys weresuppliants they arranged dances of maidens and youths, and inarranging the dances they made it a rule of the festival that sweetcakes of sesame and honey should be carried, in order that the