After listening to the pleas of the exiled Samians, the Lacedaemonians, also known as the Spartans, prepared for war and set out to attack the island of Samos. According to the Samians, the Spartans acted out of gratitude. They claimed that in an earlier time, Samos had sent ships to help Sparta during its war against the Messenians. If this account is true, the Spartans were repaying an old favor.
However, the Spartans themselves offered a different explanation. They said their decision was not mainly driven by sympathy for the Samians who begged for help. Instead, they were motivated by a desire for revenge and justice. The people of Samos, they claimed, had committed serious insults against them and their allies Different Stories About the Samian Fleet.
Stolen Gifts and Broken Honor
One of the main reasons for Spartan anger was the seizure of valuable gifts. The Spartans had once sent a finely made bowl as a gift to Croesus, the king of Lydia. The Samians had taken this bowl before it reached its destination. In addition, Amasis, the king of Egypt, had sent a beautiful corselet to Sparta, which was also seized by the Samians the year before the bowl was taken.
This corselet was an extraordinary piece of craftsmanship. It was made of linen and richly decorated with figures of animals woven into the fabric. Gold and a rare material called tree-wool were embroidered into it. What amazed people most was the fine detail: each thread twist contained three hundred and sixty smaller threads, all visible to the eye. A corselet of the same kind was later dedicated by Amasis to the temple of Minerva in Lindus, showing how precious and rare such armor was.
Corinthian Support for the Campaign
The Corinthians also gladly joined the expedition against Samos. Their reasons were personal and rooted in past insults. About one generation earlier, around the time the wine-bowl was seized, the Samians had offended Corinth in a serious way Sofia Day Trips.
At that time, Periander, the son of Cypselus and ruler of Corinth, had taken three hundred boys from the noblest families of Corcyra. These boys were being sent to King Alyattes to be made eunuchs, a fate that awaited them in Sardis. The men escorting the boys stopped at Samos during their journey.
The Samians Protect the Corcyraean Boys
When the Samians learned what awaited the boys, they were deeply disturbed. They persuaded the boys to seek refuge in the temple of Diana, a sacred place where harm was forbidden. Because of religious law, the Corinthians could not forcibly remove the boys from the temple.
Angered and frustrated, the Corinthians tried another method. They attempted to starve the boys by cutting off all food supplies. In response, the Samians devised a clever and compassionate solution. They created a special festival to help the boys survive.
A Festival of Mercy
During this festival, which the Samians continued to celebrate for many years afterward, choirs of young men and women gathered around the temple every evening. As night fell, they carried cakes made of sesame and honey. These cakes were placed where the boys could grab them secretly and feed themselves.
In this way, the boys were saved from starvation without breaking religious law. While this act showed kindness toward the children, it deeply angered the Corinthians. This old grievance remained alive and later pushed Corinth to support the Spartan attack on Samos.
The attack on Samos was not driven by a single cause but by many layers of memory, insult, and honor. Old favors, stolen gifts, and acts of mercy all played a role. What one city saw as kindness, another remembered as humiliation. In the ancient world, such long memories often led to war, even generations later.
