It seems at first strange that the Persian creed never captured the imagination of the Greek. It may, indeed, be doubted whether it was ever presented to him in its highest and purest form. The ideal was, perhaps, too elevated for the ordinary devotee, and its full appreciation confined to the initiated few. The Greek learnt indeed in after times to admire certain of the virtues which the Persian displayed; but never grasped, apparently, the spiritual and intellectual basis which underlay them. It was long, too, ere the bitter hostility to the barbarian allowed the Greek to view him and his ways with unprejudiced eyes; and in that lapse of time the barbarian had deteriorated, and his life had become more and more tainted with the baser side of Oriental civilization, which could only excite contempt in the Hellenic mind. Of the history of the Asiatic Greeks during the later years of Cyrus and the brief reign of his successor, Cambyses, but little is known. Samos alone, as has been said, retained its independence. During the last years of Cyrus, somewhere about 533, a certain Polykrates made himself tyrant of the island, and under his rule the Samians enjoyed a short period of prosperity, so great that it remained proverbial in after-history. Polykrates used to the full the opportunity afforded him by Cyrus’ detention in the East. Separated as he was by only a few miles of sea from the great empire, he could not but recognize the danger of his position, a danger which was rendered far greater by the fact that the acquisition of Phœnicia had given the Persians that arm they had up to that time lacked, a fleet. The great prosperity of the island, due, no doubt, in a great measure to its being the only Greek trading community on the Asiatic side which was not under the Persian dominion, enabled him to raise and maintain a large body of mercenaries as well as a fleet of a hundred fifty-oared war-ships. He furthermore entered into negotiations with Egypt, with a view to mutual defence. At home in the Ægean, he played a many-sided part. Piracy, trade, engineering, and territorial acquisition were all included in the field of his manifold activity. The piracy was probably carried on at the expense of those traders who did not use Samos as an entrepôt between East and West. It involved him in many a quarrel with the Asiatic Greek towns, whose anomalous position at the time is shown by the recorded fact that Polykrates actually took possession of parts of their territory on the mainland, although they were under the Persian dominion. This somewhat wild career was interrupted, if not positively checked, by events which were preparing on the far side of the Levant.