Our records of this war contain obvious mis-statements about the death of Cyrus, and their whole truth has been questioned[376]. But the hostility of Polycrates to Persia is sufficiently shown by his friendship with Egypt. His break with Amasis king of Egypt can scarcely be anything but a desertion to the common enemy Persia. The catholic character of his piracy, which stopped all shipping though it confiscated only hostile craft, is not really explained by his jest when he claimed that by this method he not only injured his enemies whose ships he kept, but also secured the gratitude of his friends, whose ships he released. His proceedings become really comprehensible only if we understand them as one of the earliest instances of a strict blockade, plainly directed against the great land power to the east. The Peloponnesian expedition against Polycrates shows simply that the neutrals to the west did not yet realize who was their real enemy[377]. The danger from Persia only became apparent to European Greece when Darius invaded Scythia and Thrace[378]. There is every reason to believe that Polycrates supported Cambyses half-heartedly and under compulsion. He went over to the Persian side only when Cambyses was collecting a force against Egypt[379], or in other words when the Great King was advancing on the Mediterranean with an overwhelming force. He sent to his support only a disaffected contingent that was a source of trouble and weakness to him at home in Samos[379]. He met his death not so very long after, in an attempt to break away from Persia at what must have been the very first opportunity, just about the time when Cambyses fell ill[380].