Particular statements respecting the value of gold and silver, as exchanged one against the other, are to be received with some reserve as the basis of any general estimate, since we have not the means of comparing a great many such statements together. For the process of coinage was imperfectly performed, and the different pieces, both of gold and silver, in circulation, differed materially in weight one with the other. Herodotus gives the ratio of gold to silver as 13 : 1. [431] Herodot. iii, 96. [432] Herodot. v, 52-53; viii, 98. “It appears to be a favorite idea with all barbarous princes, that the badness of the roads adds considerably to the natural strength of their dominions. The Turks and Persians are undoubtedly of this opinion: the public highways are, therefore, neglected, and particularly so towards the frontiers.” (Kinneir, Geog. Mem. of Pers. p. 43.) The description of Herodotus contrasts favorably with the picture here given by Mr. Kinneir. It was Darius also who first completed the conquest of the Ionic Greeks by the acquisition of the important island of Samos. That island had maintained its independence, at the time when the Persian general Harpagus effected the conquest of Ionia. It did not yield voluntarily when Chios and Lesbos submitted, and the Persians had no fleet to attack it; nor had the Phenicians yet been taught to round the Triopian cape. Indeed, the depression which overtook the other cities of Ionia, tended rather to the aggrandizement of Samos, under the energetic and unscrupulous despotism of Polykratês. That ambitious Samian, about ten years after the conquest of Sardis by Cyrus (seemingly between 536-532 B. C.), contrived to seize by force or fraud the government of his native island, with the aid of his brothers Pantagnôtus and Sylosôn, and a small band of conspirators.[433] At first, the three brothers shared the supreme power; but presently Polykratês put to death Pantagnôtus, banished Sylosôn, and made himself despot alone. In this station, his ambition, his perfidy, and his good fortune, were alike remarkable. He conquered several of the neighboring islands, and even some towns on the mainland; he carried on successful war against Milêtus; and signally defeated the Lesbian ships which came to assist Milêtus; he got together a force of one hundred armed ships called pentekonters, and one thousand mercenary bowmen,—aspiring to nothing less than the dominion of Ionia, with the islands in the Ægean. Alike terrible to friend and foe by his indiscriminate spirit of aggression, he acquired a naval power which seems at that time to have been the greatest in the Grecian world.[434] He had been in intimate alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, however, ultimately broke with him. Considering his behavior towards allies, such rupture is not at all surprising; but Herodotus ascribes it to the alarm which Amasis conceived at the uninterrupted and superhuman good fortune of