240 . ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



facing a consolidated Assyrian Empire, and a life and deatJi struggle 

 between the two was imminent. Spheres of influence were being con- 

 tended f(ir and alliances sought by both, especially with the Greek 

 peoples and potentates, whose military and naval power, particularly the 

 latter, was considerable. Cyrus and Cambyses in Persia and Amasis 

 in Egypt were the monarchs of the respective naitions at the Pytha- 

 gorean period, and Polycrates was the ruler of Samos, between whom 

 and Amasis there was a close and apparently a personal friendship. A 

 map. of the Levant, extended to include Italy, will show the important 

 position of this island at a time when the mariner's compass was not 

 in use and vessels crept along the shores, guided by such sailing direc- 

 tions as we find in the Odyssey. 



Samos is one of the loveliest islands of the beautiful ^gean, only 

 a mile from the Asiatic coast, some forty-five miles south from Smyrna. 

 It io thirty miles in length by eight or ten in breadth, and as a moun- 

 tain of nearly 5,000 feet slopes upwards from a fertile plain, it is well 

 watered and highly productive. Its exports now reach a million dol- 

 lars of annual value. ^ 



This was not, let me incidentally mention, the Samos mentioned 

 in the Iliad (Bk. II, v. 634) as sending to the Trojan war part of 

 the small contingent of a dozen ships commanded by Ulysses. We 

 hear of it, however, in historic times as one of the most powerful mem- 

 bers of the Ionic Confederacy, and we know that its people were 

 among the first to turn their attention to naval affairs. Colseus, the 

 Samian, was the first Greek to sail out into the Atlantic, and the 

 islanders founded numerous colonirs in the comparatively barbarian 

 lands of Thrace, Italy and Sicily. The little state reached its highest 

 development under Polycrates. One may wonder if Mnesarchns en- 

 graved the gem for Polycrates about which Herodotus tells his well- 

 known story. The tyrant (or perpetual president) had been so won- 

 derfully fortnnate that, as he told Amasis, ho distrusted his luck, and 

 was advised to throw his mast highly prized possession into the sea. 

 He cast his ring into the .waves, which was returned to him in a fish 



* Mr. victor B^rard (Revue des ReUglons, vol. 39) gives an Interesting 

 account of the names of the .^gcan Islands. Samos, once called Same, is 

 thought to be named from the Phenician Sama, a height. One of its early 

 names was Me?iâ/i<pv?.oç, darkly shaded ; another was Aplovaan, from its oak forests. 

 By the Carians it was called Uapftevia, the Virgin Isle, and still another Phœnecian 

 name was 'IpôpatoC. Still another appellation was 'XvBe^ovç, in allusion to the 

 flowery plain which faced the narrow strait between it and Asia Minor, which was 

 he usual channel through which all vessels plying between Egypt and the Helles- 

 pont had to pass. Its position for strategic purposes was therefore unrivalled, and 

 pirates found the situation suitable whenever the naval policing of the Levant was 

 lax. 



