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While Cambyses was still ill, the following events occurred. The governor of Sardis [28.0167,38.475] (Perseus) Sardis appointed by Cyrus was Oroetes, a Persian. This man had an impious desire; for although he had not been injured or spoken badly of by Polycrates of +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos , and had in fact never even seen him before, he desired to seize and kill him, for the following reason, most people say.
While Cambyses was still ill, the following events occurred. The governor of Sardis [28.0167,38.475] (Perseus) Sardis appointed by Cyrus was Oroetes, a Persian. This man had an impious desire; for although he had not been injured or spoken badly of by Polycrates of +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos , and had in fact never even seen him before, he desired to seize and kill him, for the following reason, most people say.
[2] As
Oroetes and another
Persian whose name was
Mitrobates, governor of the province at
Dascyleium, sat at the king's doors, they fell from talking to quarreling; and as they compared their achievements
Mitrobates said to
Oroetes,
[3] “You are not to be reckoned a man; the island of
+Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe
Samos
lies close to your province, yet you have not added it to the king's dominion—an island so easy to conquer that some native of it revolted against his rulers with fifteen hoplites, and is now lord of it.”
1
[4] Some say that
Oroetes, angered by this reproach, did not so much desire to punish the source of it as to destroy
Polycrates utterly, the occasion of the reproach.
Histories. Herodotus. ed. A.D. Godley. Cambridge. 1920-1925.
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