21. They, then, having carried their luxury and insolence to a great height, at last, when thirty ambassadors came to them from the people of Crotona, slew them all, and threw their bodies down over the wall, and left them there to be eaten by beasts. And this was the beginning of great evils to them, as the Deity was much offended at it. Accordingly, a few days afterwards all their chief magistrates appeared to see the same vision on one night; for they thought that they saw Juno coming into the midst of the market-place, and vomiting gall; and a spring of blood arose in her temple. But even then they did not desist from their arrogance, until they were all destroyed by the Crotonians. But Heraclides of Pontus, in his treatise on Justice, says,—"The Sybarites having put down the tyranny of Telys, and having destroyed all those who had exercised authority, met them and slew them at the altars of the gods. And at the sight of this slaughter the statue of Juno turned itself away, and the floor sent up a fountain of blood, so that they were forced to cover all the place around with brazen tablets, wishing to stop the rising of the blood: on which account they were all driven from their city and destroyed. And they had also been desirous to obscure the glory of the famous games at Olympia; for watching the time when they are celebrated, they attempted to draw over the athletes to their side by the extravagance of the prizes which they offered." [Sidenote: THE TARENTINES.] 22. And the men of Crotona, as Timæus says, after they had destroyed the people of Sybaris, began to indulge in luxury; so that their chief magistrate went about the city clad in a purple robe, and wearing a golden crown on his head, and wearing also white sandals. But some say that this was not done out of luxury, but owing to Democedes the physician, who was by birth a native of Crotona; and who having lived with Polycrates the tyrant of Samos, and having been taken prisoner by the Persians after his death, was taken to the king of Persia, after Orœtes had put Polycrates to death. And Democedes, having cured Atossa, the wife of Darius, and daughter of Cyrus, who had a complaint in her breast, asked of her this reward, to be sent back to Greece, on condition of returning again to Persia; and having obtained his request he came to Crotona. And as he wished to remain there, when some Persian laid hold of him and said that he was a slave of the king of Persia, the Crotonians took him away, and having stripped the Persian of his robe, dressed the lictor of their chief magistrate in it. And from that time forward, the lictor, having on the Persian robe, went round with the chief magistrate to all the altars every seventh day; not for the sake of luxury or insolence, but doing it for the purpose of insulting the Persians. But after this the men of Crotona, as Timæus says, attempted to put an end to the Assembly at Olympia, by appointing