Polycrates was of noble descent and governed Samos as a tyrant, from ca. 538 until 522 BC (Strabo, Geographia 14.1.16, Herodotus, Historia 3.39). As soon as he seized power, he exiled the most dangerous of his aristocrat adversaries and imposed economic restrictions on the income of the rest of them. It is said that he was very rich and lived in luxury. Thus, he managed to convince Demodocus, a well-known doctor of that time, to go to Samos offering him as salary two talents, while until then he was paid by Pisistratus a hundred mnae.

He promoted a large number of public works, among them an Agora and Eupalinus' tunnel, renowned in that time. It was a work undertaken by the engineer Eupalinus of Megara. Its aim was to supply with water the city of Samos. It was a tunnel 1 kilometre long, dug in the mountain over the city. The works in the tunnel had begun from both ends and the two groups of workers met in the middle of the distance, with a divergence of only 1,80 metres approximately.

The construction of Samos' harbour and of the ditch around the city's wall date from his time, as well as the effort to reconstruct the Heraion, the famous temple originally designed by Rhoecus and Theodorus and completed in the Hellenistic and the Roman times (Herodotus, Historia 3.60). In his time a new type of ship was designed, the so-called Samaina. It was a dieres with an obtuse prow, which functioned both as a trader and as a warship (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 540d-e).

| introduction | agriculture | trade | state organization | Archaic Period

Note: Click on a picture for a brief description.