The drinking vessels (ποτήρια) were almost certainly of metal. Ποτήρια of earthenware are only once[426] mentioned in the passages quoted in Liddell and Scott’s _Lexicon_, whereas there are numerous passages in which ποτήρια are specifically stated to have been of metal[427]. In the case before us the fact that they were lent and for entertainments of special importance points strongly to metal[428]. We have just seen that Theodorus, who worked for Polycrates later in his career, was a maker of metal ποτήρια. It may well be the case therefore that Theodorus was something more to Polycrates than merely his crown jeweller and silversmith[429]. The Samian silversmiths got their material from Tartessus[430]. Polycrates must therefore have had at least a second-hand interest in Samian shipping before his accession. In the outline of my views on the origin of the tyranny published in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ for 1906 I observed that there was no evidence that Polycrates procured his silver in his own ships. [Sidenote: Aiakes father of Polycrates is probably the Aiakes whom a Samian inscription appears to connect with sea-borne trade.] That is still the case; but curiously enough only a few weeks after this observation was made, a find from Samos itself was published[431], which, with the learned and illuminating comments of the scholar who published it, has thrown fresh and interesting light on the close concern which the family of Polycrates already had in Samian shipping in the days when the future tyrant was still a child. The find consists of a headless seated statue[432] (fig. 10) that at once recalls the figures from Branchidae now in the British Museum[433]. The style both of the figure and of the lettering of the inscription attached to it point to a date about 550 B.C. The statue was dedicated by Aiakes the son of Bryson. Aiakes is not a common name. It was borne by the father of Polycrates. It is not improbable that, as L. Curtius maintains, the Aiakes who dedicated the statue was none other than the tyrant’s father. The date suits exactly: so too does the inscription as ingeniously interpreted by Curtius. The actual words are: Ἀεάκης ἀνέθηκεν ὀ Βρύσωνος ὂς τῇ Ἤρῃ τὴν σύλην ἔπρησεν κατὰ τὴν ἐπίστασιν.