We are told that both the Lacedæmonians and the Corinthians,—who joined them in the expedition now contemplated,—had separate grounds of quarrel with the Samians,[439] which operated as a more powerful motive than the simple desire to aid the suffering exiles. But it rather seems that the subsequent Greeks generally construed the Lacedæmonian interference against Polykratês as an example of standing Spartan hatred against despots. Indeed, the only facts which we know, to sustain this anti-despotic sentiment for which the Lacedæmonians had credit, are, their proceedings against Polykratês and Hippias; there may have been other analogous cases, but we cannot specify them with certainty. However this may be, a joint Lacedæmonian and Corinthian force accompanied the exiles back to Samos, and assailed Polykratês in the city. They did their best to capture it, for forty days, and were at one time on the point of succeeding, but were finally obliged to retire without any success. “The city would have been taken,” says Herodotus, “if all the Lacedæmonians had acted like Archias and Lykôpas,”—who, pressing closely upon the retreating Samians, were shut within the town-gates, and perished. The historian had heard this exploit in personal conversation with Archias, grandson of the person above mentioned, in the deme Pitana at Sparta,—whose father had been named Samius, and who respected the Samians above any other Greeks, because they had bestowed upon the two brave warriors, slain within their town, an honorable and public funeral.[440] It is rarely that Herodotus thus specifies his informants: had he done so more frequently the value as well as the interest of his history would have been materially increased. [439] Herodot. iii, 47, 48, 52. [440] Herodot. iii, 54-56.