In the west Darius pursued even more extensive plans. If Cambyses had trodden the soil of Africa, his armies were to cross the western sea, and carry the empire of Persia into Europe--a point which none of the great warrior princes of the east had as yet reached. Diodorus tells us, that Darius, filled with eager desire to extend his dominion, master of almost all Asia, and trusting to the magnitude of the Persian power, desired to conquer Europe as his ancestors had defeated the mightiest nations with less forces.[249] The first achievement of Darius in this direction was the conquest of Samos, the most powerful and prosperous of the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Oroetes had already prepared the way for this by inviting Polycrates to Magnesia and there putting him to an ignominious death, for when Polycrates was master of Samos and at the head of the splendid naval power which he had created he could contest with Persia the possession of the Ægean (p. 143, 231). Polycrates had left the most trusted of his dependents, Maeandrius, as regent during his absence. On the news of the death of Polycrates, he declared his willingness to lay down his power. But when the nobles of Samos demanded an account of the treasures of Polycrates which were in the hands of Maeandrius, he treacherously seized those who made the demand, threw them into prison, and maintained himself as tyrant. At an earlier time, Polycrates, in close union with his two brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson, had made himself master of Samos: he then removed the former out of his path, and sent the second into banishment. Syloson went to Egypt to amuse himself with the sights of the country. There, according to Herodotus, he was one day seen by Darius, who was then in Egypt with Cambyses, in the market-place of Memphis, clad in a red cloak. The cloak pleased Darius and he wished to purchase it, but Syloson hastened to offer it as a present to the Persian prince. When Darius became king, Syloson went to Susa, as Herodotus relates, placed himself at the gate of the palace, and told the door-keeper that he had done a service to the king. Darius in astonishment at such an assertion from a Greek, caused Syloson to be brought, remembered the cloak, and was prepared to reward the gift by a liberal present of gold and silver. But Syloson urged the king to restore him to the throne of Polycrates, which was now in the hands of a man who had been a slave in his family; the island was to be spared.[250]