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Health
AND

Numbers
 Health
AND

Numbers
A Problems-Based Introduction
to Biostatistics, Third Edition

Chap T. Le, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics,
School of Public Health
Director of Biostatistics & Informatics,
Comprehensive Masonic Cancer Center
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Copyright  2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 978-0470-18589-6

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 To my wife, Minh-Ha,
& my daughters, Mina and Jenna
with deepest love and appreciation
 Contents

Preface xi
Introduction from the First Edition xv

1 Proportions, Rates, and Ratios 1

1.1 Proportions 1
1.1.1 Comparative Studies 2
1.1.2 Screening Tests 5
1.1.3 Displaying Proportions 7
1.2 Rates 12
1.2.1 Changes 12
1.2.2 Measures of Morbidity and Mortality 13
1.2.3 Standardization of Rates 15
1.3 Ratios 18
1.3.1 Relative Risk 18
1.3.2 Odds and Odds Ratio 19
1.3.3 The Mantel–Haenszel Method 21

vii
viii HEALTH AND NUMBERS

1.4 Computational and Visual Aids 26

1.4.1 Computer Screen 27
1.4.2 Formula Bar 27
1.4.3 Cut and Paste 27
1.4.4 Select and Drag 28
1.4.5 Bar and Pie Charts 28
1.4.6 Rate Standardization 29
1.4.7 Forming 2  2 Tables 30
Exercises 31

2 Organization, Summarization, and Presentation of Data 52

2.1 Tabular and Graphical Methods 52

2.1.1 One-Way Scatter Plots 52
2.1.2 Frequency Distribution 53
2.1.3 Histogram and the Frequency Polygon 57
2.1.4 The Cumulative Frequency Graph and Percentiles 63
2.2 Numerical Methods 68
2.2.1 Mean 69
2.2.2 Other Measures of Location 70
2.2.3 Measures of Dispersion 71
2.3 Coefficient of Correlation 74
2.4 Visual and Computational Aids 79
2.4.1 Histograms 79
2.4.2 Descriptive Statistics 80
2.4.3 Pearson’s Coefficient of Correlation 81
Exercises 82

3 Probability and Probability Models 98

3.1 Probability 98
3.1.1 The Certainty of Uncertainty 99
3.1.2 Probability 99
3.1.3 Rules of Probabilities 101
3.1.4 Statistical Relationship 103
3.1.5 Using Screening Tests 104
3.1.6 Measuring Agreement 106
3.2 The Normal Distribution 110
3.2.1 Shape of the Normal Curve 110
3.2.2 Areas Under the Standard Normal Curve 112
3.2.3 The Normal as a Probability Model 118
3.3 Probability Models 120
3.3.1 Variables and Distributions 121
3.3.2 Probability Models For Discrete Data 121
3.3.3 Probability Models For Continuous Data 125
 Contents ix

3.4 Computational Aids 127

3.4.1 Normal Curves 127
3.4.2 The ‘‘t’’ Curves 128
Exercises 130

4 Confidence Estimation 135

4.1 Basic Concepts 136

4.1.1 Statistics as Variables 136
4.1.2 Sampling Distributions 137
4.1.3 Introduction to Confidence Estimation 139
4.2 Estimation of a Population Mean 140
4.2.1 Confidence Intervals for a Population Mean 142
4.2.2 Use of Small Samples 144
4.2.3 Evaluation of Interventions 145
4.3 Estimation of a Population Proportion 148
4.4 Estimation of a Population Odds Ratio 152
4.5 Estimation of a Population Correlation Coefficient 155
4.6 A Note on Computation 158
Exercises 158

5 Introduction to Hypothesis Testing 171

5.1 Basic Concepts 172

5.1.1 Hypothesis Tests 173
5.1.2 Statistical Evidence 174
5.1.3 Errors 174
5.2 Analogies 177
5.2.1 Trials by Jury 177
5.2.2 Medical Screening Tests 177
5.2.3 Common Expectations 178
5.3 Summaries and Conclusions 179
5.3.1 Rejection Region 179
5.3.2 Relationship to Confidence Intervals 182
Exercises 183

6 Comparison of Population Proportions 186

6.1 One-Sample Problem with Binary Data 186

6.2 Analysis of Pair-Matched Binary Data 188
6.3 Comparison of Two Proportions 191
6.4 The Mantel–Haenszel Method 196
x HEALTH AND NUMBERS

6.5 Computational Aids 201

Exercises 203

7 Comparison of Population Means 215

7.1 One-Sample Problem with Continuous Data 215

7.2 Analysis of Pair-Matched Data 217
7.3 Comparison of Two Means 221
7.4 One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) 225
7.5 Computational Aids 229
Exercises 231

8 Regression Analysis 243

8.1 Simple Regression Analysis 244

8.1.1 The Simple Linear Regression Model 244
8.1.2 The Scatter Diagram 244
8.1.3 Meaning of Regression Parameters 245
8.1.4 Estimation of Parameters 246
8.1.5 Testing for Independence 250
8.1.6 Analysis of Variance Approach 252
8.2 Multiple Regression Analysis 254
8.2.1 Regression Model with Several Independent Variables 254
8.2.2 Meaning of Regression Parameters 255
8.2.3 Effect Modifications 255
8.2.4 Polynomial Regression 256
8.2.5 Estimation of Parameters 257
8.2.6 Analysis of Variance Approach 257
8.2.7 Testing Hypotheses in Multiple Linear Regression 258
8.3 Graphical and Computational Aids 262
Exercises 264

Bibliography 271
Appendices 275

A Table of Random Numbers 276

B Area Under the Standard Normal Curve 277
C Percentiles of the t Distributions 278
D Percentiles of Chi-square Distributions 279
E Percentiles of the F Distributions 280

Answers to Selected Exercises 281

Index 303
 Preface

A course in introductory biostatistics is often required for professional students in public

health, dentistry, nursing, and medicine, and graduate students in nursing and other
biomedical sciences. It is only a course or two, but the requirement is often considered as a
roadblock causing anxiety in many quarters. The feelings are expressed in many ways and in
many different settings but all leading to the same conclusion that simply surviving the
endurance is the only practical goal. And students need help, in the form of a user-friendly
text, in order to do just that, surviving. In the early 1990s, we decided it’s time to write our
own text, and Health and Numbers: Basic Biostatistical Methods was published in 1995
reflecting our experience after teaching introductory biostatistics courses for many years to
students from various human health disciplines. The second edition, Health and Numbers:
A Problems-based Introduction to Biostatistics was also aimed to the same audience for
whom the first edition was written: professional and beginning graduate students in human
health disciplines who need help to successfully pass and to benefit from the basic
biostatistics course requirement. Our main objective was not only to avoid the perception that
statistics is just a number of formulas that students need to get over with, but to present it as a
way of thinking, thinking about ways to gather and analyze data so as to benefit from taking
the required course. And there is no better way to do that than making our book problem-
based: many problems with real data in various fields are provided at the end of all eight
chapters as aids to learning how to use statistical procedures, still the nuts and bolts of
elementary applied statistics. The most appealing feature of Health & Numbers, through the
first two editions, has been that it is based on the most popular, most available, cheapest
computer package, the Microsoft Excel. The second edition was successful; however:
(1) there are not enough details in the use of Excel, and (2) the book covers many topics —
some are difficult for beginners. Therefore, in this third edition, Health and Numbers: A
Problems-Based Introduction to Biostatistics, I try to overcome those weaknesses by cutting

xi
xii HEALTH AND NUMBERS

out a few advanced topics and adding many more hints and examples on the use of Excel in
every chapter.
The ‘‘way of thinking’’ called statistics has become important to all professionals who
not only are scientific or business-like but also caring people who want to help and make
the world a better place. But what is it? What is biostatistics and what can it do? There are
popular definitions and perceptions of statistics. For this book and its readers, we don’t
emphasize the definition of ‘‘statistics as things’’, but instead offer an active concept of
‘‘doing statistics’’. The doing of statistics is a way of thinking about numbers, with
emphasis on relating their interpretation and meaning to the manner in which they are
collected. Our working definition of statistics, as an activity, is that it is a way of thinking
about data, its collection, its analysis, and its presentation. Formulas are needed but not as
the only things you need to know.
To illustrate statistics as a way of thinking, let’s start with a familiar scenario of our
criminal court procedures. A crime has been discovered and a suspect has been identified.
After a police investigation to collect evidence against the suspect, a prosecutor presents
summarized evidence to a jury. The jurors learn about the rules and debate the rule about
convicting beyond a reasonable doubt and the rule about unanimous decision. After the
debate, the jurors vote and a verdict is reached: guilty or not guilty. Why do we need this
time-consuming, cost-consuming process called trial by jury? Well, the truth is often
unknown, at least uncertain. It is uncertain because of variability (every case is different)
and because of incomplete information (missing key evidence?). Trial by jury is the way
our society deals with uncertainties; its goal is to minimize mistakes.
How does society deal with uncertainties? We go through a process called trial by jury,
consisting of these steps: (1) we form assumption or hypothesis (that every person is
innocent until proven guilty), (2) we gather data (evidence supporting the charge), and
(3) we decide whether the hypothesis should be rejected (guilty) or should not be rejected
(not guilty). Basically, a successful trial should consist of these elements: (1) a probable
cause (with a crime and a suspect), (2) a thorough investigation by police, (3) an efficient
presentation by the prosecutor, and (4) a fair and impartial jury.
In the above-described context of a trial by jury, let us consider a few specific examples:
(1) the crime is lung cancer and the suspect is cigarette smoking, or (2) the crime is
leukemia and the suspect is pesticides, or (3) the crime is breast cancer and the suspect is a
defective gene. The process is now called research, and the tool to carry out that research is
biostatistics. In a simple way, biostatistics serves as the biomedical version of the trial by
jury process. It is the science of dealing with uncertainties using incomplete information.
Yes, even science is uncertain; scientists arrive at different conclusions in many different
areas at different times; many studies are inconclusive. The reasons for uncertainties
remain the same. Nature is complex and full of unexplained biological variability. But,
most important of all, we always have to deal with incomplete information. It is often not
practical to study the entire population; we have to rely on information gained from
samples.
How does science deal with uncertainties? We learn from how society deals with
uncertainties; we go through a process called biostatistics, consisting of these steps: (1) we
form assumption or hypothesis (from the research question), (2) we gather data (from
clinical trials, surveys, medical records abstractions), and (3) we make decision(s) (by
doing statistical analysis/inference, a guilty verdict is referred to as statistical
 Preface xiii

significance). Basically, a successful research should consist of these elements: (1) a good
research question (with well-defined objectives and endpoints), (2) a thorough
investigation (by experiments or surveys), (3) an efficient presentation of data (organizing
data, summarizing, and presenting data; an area called descriptive statistics), and
(4) proper statistical inference. This book is a problems-based introduction to the last three
elements; together they form a field called biostatistics. The coverage is rather brief on
data collection, but very extensive on descriptive statistics (Chapters 1 and 2), and on
methods of statistical inference (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). Chapter 3, on probability and
probability models, serves as the link between descriptive and inferential parts.
The author would like to express his sincere appreciation to colleagues for feedback, to
teaching assistants who helped with examples and exercises, and to students for feedbacks.
Finally, my family bore patiently the pressures caused by my long-term commitment to
write books; to my wife and daughters, I am always most grateful.

CHAP T. LE
Edina, Minnesota
Other documents randomly have
different content
Fig. 1. Lophos Loutrou
from Daskalio station.

Fig. 2. On the road from

Daskalio station to
Plaka.

Fig. 3. Kamaresa.
 Fig. 4. Kitsovouno from
Kamaresa.

Views in the Laurium mining district.

The ἄκρα of the Caucasus are of course not capes but peaks.
Trinakria on the other hand is the land of the three capes. It is
important to remember that the word ἄκρον has no equivalent in
English. It means peak or height as well as cape or headland. To
attempt to keep these two meanings separate is to commit a mental
mistranslation. Though Sunium is the ἄκρον par excellence, the
whole Σουνιακὸς γουνός abounds in ἄκρα, or as the inscriptions call
them, λόφοι (crests, ridges)[227]. Bursian describes the hills of
Laurium (Lauriongebirge) as a continuous mountain chain, and
includes it with Parnes, Brilessos, and Hymettos among the main
ridges (grössere Gebirgszüge) of Attica[228]. The writer has spent
some days walking in the mining district. The sea is always near, and
glimpses of it may be had frequently. But it is the hills that dominate
the landscape, not the sea. More particularly is this the case in the
district that was most mined in the sixth century, where the ground
varies in height from 170 m. to 370 m. (550–1200 feet), and lies well
inland[229].
In the light of this probability that the Diakrioi occupied the
mining district of Attica, and of the fact that their name means hill
men, it is interesting to note that the Idaean Dactyls, who “are said to
have been the first miners,” are stated also to have been men of the
mountains[230], and that in German and Welsh the words for miners
(Bergleuten, gwyr y mynyddau) mean literally “hill men.”
 The Greek word Diakrioi would have a peculiar appropriateness
for miners. The ἄκρον is precisely the part of a hill that the farmer
has least use for. Miners on the other hand preferred to carry on
their smelting operations on the hill tops, because a better draught is
thus secured[231].
It has been pointed out by Milchhoefer[232] that the mining district
is considerably broken up by the Cleisthenic division of Attica into
trittyes. Milchhoefer’s arrangement of the trittyes in the mining
district has been convincingly simplified by Loeper[233], but Loeper
himself leaves the mines divided between three trittyes of three
different tribes. We may therefore still follow Milchhoefer in thinking
that Cleisthenes took special precautions to break up this district.
The same fact is noticed by Milchhoefer about the district round
Plotheia, the Northern deme already noticed as belonging to the
Epakria. Here too the Russian scholar has simplified, but here too
only to a limited extent. “In a breaking up like this of the old hill
country of the Peisistratids” Milchhoefer sees unmistakable signs of
“measures directed against the Peisistratids.” Now that we have as
good reason for seeing Peisistratan hill country round Laurium as
round Plotheia, we must either reject Milchhoefer altogether, or,
more probably, see in both districts centres of Peisistratan influence,
of which the Southernmost was the more important. Mining
operations in antiquity were conducted on a large scale. Forty
thousand workers were employed in mines near Carthagena[234].
Athenaeus[235] speaks of tens of thousands of chained slaves as
working in the Laurium mines and losing their lives in an
unsuccessful revolt at the time of the second slave war in Sicily (103–
99 B.C.). Of the 20,000 who deserted to Decelea when it was
occupied by the Spartans in 413 B.C. it is not unlikely that large
numbers were miners from Laurium[236].
But what was the state of the Laurium district in the days of
Peisistratus?
The mines of Laurium do not appear in The mines were
[237]
history till 484 B.C. , when Themistocles almost certainly
persuaded the Athenians to devote the in full work at
this period,
profits from them to the building of a navy.
The Constitution of Athens speaks of a discovery of mines in that
year. This however is probably rather loose language. The writer’s
words are “on the discovery of the mines at Maronea.” The
“discovery” of 484 B.C. was of the mines in this particular part of the
Laurium district, or rather, in all probability, of an extraordinarily
rich vein in this particular part. “The disposition of the strata” (at
Maronea) “is such that the richest are not those that could be first
reached.... Some centuries of search and effort were therefore
necessary in order to suspect their existence and to reach their level”
(i.e. of the rich veins “discovered” in 484)[238].

Fig. 5. Corinthian terra

cotta tablet depicting a
miner at work.

Plutarch says that before this time the Athenians were in the habit
of distributing the Laurium revenues among themselves, and that
Themistocles had the courage to persuade them to give the habit
up[239]. This agrees with Xenophon where he declares that “no one
even attempts to say from what period people have tried to work
them[240].” The mines of Lydia, Cyprus, and Spain all appear to have
been developed in the seventh century B.C.[241]. The Siphnian mines
were at full work about 525 B.C.[242]. Mining operations are depicted
on several Corinthian clay tablets, that cannot be later than the early
part of the sixth century[243]. One of them is here reproduced (fig. 5).
Herodotus says nothing about the date of discovery of the Attic
mines in his account of the proceedings of 484 B.C.[244]. It would not
be like him to keep silence about an epoch-making discovery, or even
a phenomenal “rush,” if any had occurred just at this time. Elsewhere
he tells us that the Siphnians were already distributing among
themselves the money from their mines about the year 525 B.C.[245].
Modern writers have been inclined to talk of the great “rush” of
484[246]. But against the silence of Herodotus they can set only the
reference in the Constitution of Athens to the “discovery” at
Maronea, which has been discussed already. What made the great
impression at this time was probably not so much the output as the
employment of the output on the building of a fleet. That surely is
the point of the contemporary allusion in the Persae of Aeschylus.
The chorus of Persian elders tells the Persian queen about the
Athenians’
Fount of silver, treasure of the land[247]

just after mentioning the prowess of the Athenian troops, and just
before explaining the weapons that they use.
The idea proposed in 484 by Themistocles was not original. Seven
years earlier the Thasians had used the revenues from their mines to
build a fleet against the Persians[248]. It was doubtless the success of
the Athenian fleet in a supreme crisis that caused the Athenians to
remember with such pride this triumph of the voluntary system.
There can therefore be no question that the mines were worked in
the sixth century[249]. But if we are to understand the position of the
leader of the mining interests at that period, we must learn
something about the conditions and position of the miners.
The leaders of the Plain and Coast had a and the miners
powerful body of citizens behind their free men, good
backs. The mines on the other hand, at least material for a
political faction.
from the time of Xenophon, were worked
almost exclusively by slaves[250].
In the fourth century very occasionally poor citizens worked their
own allotments[251]. Skilled work like smelting seems always to have
been done by free men. The tombstone of “Atotes the miner,” carved
in letters of the second half of the fourth century, declares that he
was a Paphlagonian “of the root of Pylaimenes, who fell slain by the
hand of Achilles,” and boasts of his unrivalled skill[252]. But there is
no recorded instance of a citizen working in a mine for wages[253].
This however does not prove that they did not do so in the days of
Peisistratus, when, as pointed out in the introductory chapter, the
conditions of labour must have been very different from what they
became in the fifth and fourth centuries, and industrial slavery had
scarcely yet begun. A fragment of Solon suggests that it was quite
usual in his days for citizens to work with their own hands, though
whether for pay or on their own account is not stated and no
particular occupations are specified[254].
About ten years after Solon’s legislation the Athenians are found
resolving “on account of their factions to elect ten archons, five from
the nobility (Eupatridai), three from the farmers (agroikoi), two from
the craftsmen (demiourgoi)[255].” The equation of these three groups
of archons with the three factions of the Plain, Coast, and Hill is
more than doubtful[256]. The farmers par excellence are naturally
located in the plain: also it is doubtful whether Peisistratus had
already “raised the third faction” twenty years before he became
tyrant, and over fifty before his death. The two different sets of
names point in themselves to two different groupings of the
population. Solon’s quadruple division into pentekosiomedimnoi,
hippeis, zeugitai, and thetes proves a certain fluidity and tendency to
cross grouping. But in any case the two craftsman magistrates prove
that craftsmen or artizans were already an important element in the
free population.
In this matter of free labour in an industry such as mining, fifth
century Phrygia is perhaps a better guide than the Attica of Nikias or
Demosthenes as to the state of things in Attica during the sixth
century. In Phrygia a generation after the Samian tyrant Polycrates,
who died about 522 B.C., Pythes was working mines with citizen
labour[257]. Even in Athens in the early days of Pericles the earlier
conditions seem still to have prevailed. “Each trade τέχνη had its
body of (free) labourers organized (τὸν θητικὸν ὄχλον
συντεταγμένον)” to carry out the great public works that were
financed from the Delian treasury. A long list of the trades thus
organized ends with miners[258].
Considering the evidence already adduced for equating the sixth
century miners at Laurium with the presumably free Diakrioi, may
we not use the notices already quoted about the latter as being of
impure race and a mob of hirelings[259], and infer that in the sixth
century the mines of Laurium were worked by free men, partly of
foreign extraction and mainly working for hire?
This is of course conjecture. But it produces for the first time a
picture of the Diakrioi that harmonizes with the notices in question.
Alien shepherds and alien small farmers are most unlikely in
autochthonous Attica.
Outlander miners on the other hand have always been familiar,
wherever there have been mines to work. When mining operations
were resumed at Laurium some thirty years ago, the immediate
result was a very mixed population, the local supply of labour being
supplemented from France, Italy, and Turkey. One of the ancient
gold mines near Philippi bore the significant name of the asylum[260].
In the Laurium district itself in ancient times the people of at least
one deme, Potamioi, were famous for their readiness to admit
foreigners to citizenship[261]. Potamioi is placed by Loeper right in the
centre of the mining district, well away from the sea[262], and very
near the probable site of Maronea[263]. A member of the deme
Semachidai is found sharing a tombstone with two strangers from
Sinope[264]. We have just had occasion to notice a Paphlagonian
miner, though of a later date, and we shall see in a moment that in
the sixth century the mines of Laurium were worked in close
connexion with those of Thrace. There are no records of specific
Thracians employed in the Attic mines during the sixth century. We
only know that just after the Persians conquered Thrace, at the close
of the reign of Hippias, there was a large Greek element in the
mining population near the Strymon[265]. But in the fifth century we
have a famous case of a Thracian mine-owner settling in Athens in
the person of Thucydides, whose father was a Thracian, and whose
Thracian mines probably lost him his command in the Athenian
navy, and turned a second-rate admiral into the greatest of
historians[266]. Nikias hired out a thousand hands whom he owned in
the mines to Sosias the Thracian[267].
This ends our examination of the various steps by which
Peisistratus made himself tyrant, effected his second restoration, and
finally rooted his power. In all three cases the evidence points to the
conclusion that the secret of the tyrant’s power was his control of
mines either in Attica or Thrace. To complete the enquiry it is
necessary now to examine the accounts of his first restoration. As
observed already, this event is recorded only in anecdotal form. As
independent evidence it would hardly be worth considering. All that
is here claimed for it is that it can be so interpreted as to corroborate
the conclusions already reached.
According to the story Peisistratus The strange story
persuaded the Athenians to take him back of Peisistratus’
by dressing up a stately woman named Phye first restoration
to personate Athena and order his recall[268]. It is generally agreed
that this story will not do as it stands. Various attempts have been
made to explain it away[269], but all of them are equally unconvincing.
Perhaps the reason is that all alike are based on some single
unessential detail of the story. None of them interprets it in the light
of the better known parts of the tyrant’s career, and more
particularly of the matter of fact accounts of his second restoration.
Beloch indeed, like the Russian Hirschensohn, believes that there
was only one restoration, with which the Phye story and the account
of Peisistratus’ return from the Thracian mining district are both to
be connected[270]. He notes that the cause of banishment is the same
in both cases; that the chronology is suspiciously symmetrical; that
Polyaenus combines incidents from the two restorations; and that
Eusebius[271] and Jerome[272] both make Peisistratus begin his second
reign about the time that Herodotus begins his third, while neither of
them mentions a third reign at all. Note too that corresponding to
Phye in the first restoration we have in the second a “sacred
procession” from the temple of Athena Pallenis conducted by an
Acarnanian soothsayer[273].
These points are not convincing. Similar improbabilities, and
repetitions and chronological symmetries can often be discovered in
narratives of the most unquestionable authenticity[274]. The fact that
Polyaenus combines the two accounts proves nothing, unless we
assume him to be incapable of confusing two similar events. Further,
Beloch is forced to make the marriage of Peisistratus with Megacles’
daughter precede his first exile, since he sees that the childlessness of
the marriage led to the breach with the Coast[275]. In this he goes dead
against the tradition on a point where there is no reason to suspect it.
What Beloch’s arguments do emphasize is the fact that the
situations during Peisistratus’ two periods of exile were in some ways
very similar. The sameness of the two situations may in fact be the
reason why so little has been remembered about the earlier. It raises
the question whether the tyrant mined and coined during his first
exile. There is no certainty that he did either, but the probability is
that he did both. As regards Thrace we know that Miltiades, probably
with Peisistratus’ permission and approval[276], had settled in the
Gallipoli peninsula soon after the tyranny was first established at
Athens[277]. Thrace is the one region that we can be sure that the
tyrant must have considered as a possible place of exile. As regards
the coinage it has been suggested on the is connected by
[278]
high authority of Babelon , that the Babelon with the
famous series with the owl on one side, and Athena-head
coins of Athens
the head of Athena on the other (fig. 6),
which remained for centuries the coin types of the city, was actually
started to commemorate the help that the tyrant claimed to have
received from his patron goddess at the time of his first restoration.

Fig. 6. Coin of Athens with Athena and owl.

The evidence is not conclusive. The arguments for and against this
date are based on a few literary references that are too vague to be of
much use, on points of style and technique from which it is
notoriously dangerous to draw conclusions, on a comparison of the
coin and pottery statistics from Naukratis which it is no less
dangerous to use as evidence, on a hoard found in 1886 among the
pre-Persian remains on the Athenian Acropolis which, as far as the
circumstances of the find are concerned, may have been lost or
deposited there long before the catastrophe, and only establish a
terminus ante quem that nobody would think of disputing, and on
certain alliance coins (Athens-Lampsacus, Athens-Sparta?, Athens
and the Thracian Chersonese)[279]. These last look more promising at
first sight, but only the Athens-Lampsacus coins can be dated with
any certainty, and they, unfortunately, are very small, and may have
been struck under difficulties, so that it is not easy to be sure of their
chronological position in the Athenian series.
We are driven back therefore on to the impressions of experts,
most of whom agree with Babelon that the owl-Athena series cannot
begin either much before or much after 550 B.C.[280]. That is to say
that this double type was certainly in vogue when the tyrant secured
his second restoration by means of his Thracian silver[281], and
“rooted his tyranny” in revenues derived “partly from the river
Strymon, partly from home.”
Pieces with the double type were nicknamed
sometimes colloquially called girls (κόραι), (probably just
sometimes virgins (παρθένοι), sometimes about this time)
girl, virgin,
by the virgin goddess’ own name of Pallas Pallas.
(Παλλάδες)[282]. Sometimes they got their
nickname from the reverse type, and were called owls[283]. “Virgin” is
used by Euripides, “girl” by Hyperides, “Pallas” by Eubulus, “owl” by
Aristophanes. “Owl” is said by the Aristophanes Scholiast to have
been applied to the tetradrachms; the “girl” of Hyperides is some
smaller coin[284]. In the fifth and fourth centuries therefore the bird
name, and the virgin goddess names seem to have been used side by
side, like our sovereign and crown, to indicate two different
denominations. When the names were first used is nowhere stated.
The most likely time for a type to give rise to a nickname is when the
type itself is still a novelty. If this holds good for the coins of Athens,
the nicknames Pallas, virgin, and girl go back to the time of
Peisistratus. The owl had already appeared on earlier issues,
stamped on the reverse with a simple incuse[285], and would therefore
at this time attract less attention than the Athena head.
Is it possible that we have here the clue to the Phye story? The
details about her being dressed up in full armour and placed in a
chariot are not the essence of the story: they all appear in Herodotus
in quite a different setting, as part of the ritual of the worship of
Athena in North Africa by Lake Tritonis[286]. It can hardly be doubted
that one of these passages is plagiarized from the other, and it is
scarcely less certain that Phye is indebted to the ritual of Lake
Tritonis and not vice versa.
The kernel of the Phye story lies in the Was the Athena
tradition that Peisistratus was restored by a who restored
woman, “as Herodotus says, from the deme Peisistratus the
lady of the coins?
of the Paianians, but as some say, a
Thracian flower girl from the deme of Kollytos[287].” In fact Phye, the
human goddess four cubits high, said by some to come from Attica,
and by others from Thrace, who brought Peisistratus back to Athens
for the first time, bears a suspicious likeness to the coins called
sometimes girls and sometimes goddesses, derived some from Attica,
and some from Thrace, with which Peisistratus secured his second
return, and finally established his power.
Assume for the moment that they were indeed identical, and it is
easy to see how the Phye story may have arisen. Peisistratus certainly
claimed to rule by the grace of Athena. Everyone is agreed in
inferring from the Phye story that he attributed his restoration to the
intervention of the goddess. After the citizens had fulfilled Solon’s
prophecy, and “consented to ruin their great city, induced by
money[288],” what more natural than that one of the tyrant’s
opponents should sarcastically agree that it was indeed Athena who
had restored Peisistratus: on which another might comment that it
was not the virgin goddess of Athens who had restored the tyrant,
but an alien being of quite a different order, a Thracian flower girl.
The name of flower girl (στεφανόπωλις) is cp. (i) details in
never applied to Athenian drachmae. If we the story that
accepted Head’s early dating for the Athena suggest a
derivation from
type, and assumed a Peisistratan date for the coins,
certain Athenian coins[289] where the
goddess has had her hair done by a κεροπλάστης[290] in corkscrew
curls (fig. 7a) that suggest an early date[291], and wears the garland
(στέφανος) of olive leaves (fig. 7a, b) that appears regularly on coins
of the fifth century, we might find in flower girl (lit. garland seller,
στεφανόπωλις) an allusion to this detail. The garland seller may
often have advertised her garlands by wearing one herself[292].
 Fig. 7. Athenian coins: the wreath on the head of
Athena.

Numismatists however are now unanimous in making the earliest

στέφανοι on Athenian coins later than Peisistratus[293]. To describe
the coins as flower girls would however be natural enough on the
simple supposition that Athenian flower girls had no high moral
reputation[294], and further perhaps that the business was in the
hands of Thracians, just as that of organ-grinding in England is in
the hands of Italians. Or conceivably στεφανόπωλις on our present
hypothesis is to be explained by reference to the phrase δραχμαὶ
(τοῦ) Στεφανηφόρου (drachmae of the garland bearer)[295], applied
at Athens to coins fresh from the mint, such as must have been put
into circulation in large quantities when Peisistratus returned after
his money-making in the districts round Mt Pangaion.
How readily to the Greek the garland suggested the flower girl is
seen from an explanation in the Lexicon Seguerianum of a certain
“garland-bearing hero (στεφανηφόρος ἥρως).” It runs: “Either
because the hero is so called, or by way of nickname, because he had
many garlands round him, or because garlands were sold near
him[296].” The coins themselves, especially when the garland was the
new feature, may possibly have been sometimes called garland
bearers (στεφανηφόροι), as is shown to be possible by the analogy of
such descriptive coin names as “chest bearer (κιστοφόρος)[297]” and
“harp bearer (κιθαρηφόρος)[298].”
Such bitter jesting is quite in keeping (ii) attested
with the Greek language; the Greeks were instances of Jeu
particularly fond of attributing appropriate de mot on coin
life and action to types of living things that types,
figured on their coins[299].

Fig. 8. Persian “archer.”

The best known instance of a play on such a nickname is that of

Agesilaus of Sparta, who complained that he had been driven out of
Asia by thirty thousand of the Great King’s archers, a colloquial name
for the Persian gold stater or Daric (fig. 8), derived from its type[300].
In Athens itself we find Euripides, in a fragment of the Sciron,
playing on the double meaning of “virgin,” as also on that of “pony”
(πῶλος), the colloquial name of the Corinthian drachma, that bore
on one side the image of the winged steed Pegasus:
Some you will secure if you offer a pony,
others with a pair of horses, while others are brought
on four horses, all of silver; and they love
the maidens from Athens when you bring plenty of them.

The reverse type of the Athenian drachma is punned upon by

Aristophanes, who speaks of the owls of Laurium nesting in the
purses of the Athenians and hatching small change[301]. In 404 B.C.,
during the final operations against Athens, Gylippus, the hero of the
siege of Syracuse, misappropriated a large amount of Athenian coin,
and hid it under the tiles of his roof. The theft was revealed by a
servant, who informed the ephors that “there were many owls
nesting under the tiles[302].”
 These examples are enough to show that there is nothing
improbable in the suggestion that the Phye story grew out of a
remark made by the tyrant’s enemies about his silver drachmae. Our
explanation is of course pure conjecture, and even at that it has one
weak point. The statement that Phye was a Thracian, so essential to
our interpretation, does not appear in Herodotus, according to whom
she came from the Paianian deme in Attica[303].
Can this omission be accounted for?
There is an anecdote told by Herodotus in quite another
connexion[304] which suggests that it can.
In the days just after King Darius had (iii) the story of
made his conquests in Thrace (about 512 the dressed-up
B.C.), there lived on the banks of the woman
Strymon two brothers named Pigres and Mantyes, who wished to
become tyrants of the land in which they lived. To carry out this aim
“they went to Sardis, taking with them their sister, who was tall and
handsome.” Then waiting till Darius was sitting in state before the
city, having dressed up their sister as well as they possibly could,
they sent her for water with a pitcher on her head and leading a
horse with her hand and spinning flax. She was noticed by the king,
but the result was that he sent an expedition to her country, and
deported her people to Asia.
The Strymon and Pangaion mines are at this period, before the
expansion of Macedonia, naturally described as Thracian[305]. But in
the days of King Darius, who began his reign about five years after
the death of Peisistratus, part of the country round Mt Pangaion[306],
and part of the banks of the Strymon[307] were occupied by another
race called Paionians. It was to this latter race that Pigres and
Mantyes belonged. They failed to secure the who caused
tyranny that they sought; but the expedition Hippias to lose
sent by Darius to deport the Paionians to his throne
Asia probably caused Hippias to lose his.
It can scarcely be an accident that the as a result of
tyranny at Athens ended almost losing his
immediately after the removal of one of its Paionian
(Thracian)
two roots, the mines of the country of the possessions.
Thracians and Paionians[308].
 Thus we find the restoration of the tyranny at Athens and its
abolition both ascribed to the dressing up of a tall handsome
woman[309]. It is hardly conceivable that both these events were
brought about by the same “primitive and excessively simple” means.
The Paionian dressing up has every appearance of being the
original[310].
It is possible that the whole Phye story arose at the time of the
Paionian incident, just as the good stories about some of the bad
Roman emperors must have first had a circulation only after the
emperor had ceased to reign. When Hippias had lost his Thracian
and Paionian mines, and consequently his throne, it might be said
with additional point that the Athena who had restored the father
had now deserted the son[311].
If the Paionian story is contemporary, as it well may be without
being either true or original, it accounts for the appearance in the
Peisistratus story of a dressed-up woman. Further we have brought
the story down to a period in the history of Athenian coinage when
the garland may already have made its first appearance on the head
of Athena[312], in which case “Thracian garland seller” becomes an
effective description of the type.
Thus the whole story, as it appears in the Aristotelian Constitution
of Athens, has been accounted for. In this, as in the account of
Peisistratus’ second exile, the author of the treatise seems to be
following a better authority than Herodotus. Herodotus’ deviations
appear to be attempts at rationalistic explanation in the best
Herodotean style. From Herodotus’ account of Peisistratus’ second
exile it is plain that he knew nothing of the tyrant’s connexions with
Thrace, of which we are informed in the Aristotelian treatise.
According to Herodotus the whole period of the second exile was
spent in Euboea. Hence the Thracian reference had to be rationalized
away. But a fact mentioned by Herodotus in another connexion[313]
points to Hippias having maintained some sort of position in the
North Aegean till the end of his reign. When in 510 B.C. he was
banished, a home was offered him by the king of Macedon.
Thrace and Paionia might be used indifferently in the original
account, the latter being the more accurate name, the former the
more popular. Herodotus takes Paionian as a corruption of Paianian,
and Thracian as a popular version of Paionian. That Herodotus
himself was personally responsible for the emendation Paianian is
made probable by the words of the Constitution of Athens, “as
Herodotus says, a Paianian, as some say, a Thracian.” The Paionians
are made by Herodotus[314] to recognize their own name in the paian
or war-cry of their enemies. Only the verb appears in the anecdote,
and that in the form παιωνίζω, but Herodotus must have been
equally familiar with the forms in -α-, παιανίζω, παιάν, and the
anecdote shows how ready he would be to equate Paionian with
Paianian. I am dealing here with pure speculation, but so too has
been every one else who has tried to explain away this
“extraordinarily silly business[315].” The explanation just offered is at
least in harmony with the rest of our knowledge about both
Peisistratus and Thrace.
Greeks were certainly capable of misunderstanding a jeu de mot
based on a coin type. Mention has been made already of
Aristophanes’ invocation of the “owls of Laurium” to nest in his
purse[316]. A Scholiast on the Knights has turned these owls of silver
into real birds. “The owl,” he says, “is the sacred bird of Athena, that
haunts Laurium in Attica[317].”
Whatever the truth of these speculations The tyrant
there is no doubt that the Greeks of the end Histiaeus and the
of the sixth century were fully alive to the Thracian mines.
political possibilities of the Thracian mines. Just after the Persian
conquest of Thrace and Paionia Histiaeus of Miletus, one of the
Persian king’s Greek vassals, almost succeeded in securing from the
Great King possession of Myrcinus, a mining centre in the very
district from which Peisistratus had got so much of his wealth[318]. He
was in fact granted the gift by Darius, who however was persuaded
by the far-sighted Megabazus to recall it. What alarms the Persian
statesman is the prospect of an able Greek like Histiaeus establishing
himself in a place where there are silver mines and forests suitable
for ship-timber and a large mixed population. He prophecies that
this population will quickly become the employees of the new owner
and do his bidding day and night[319].
The Myrcinus incident is bound up in the narrative of Herodotus
with the story of Pigres and Mantyes and their efforts to become
tyrants of the Paionians[320]. Herodotus says definitely that Histiaeus
did not aim at establishing a tyranny at Myrcinus[321]. But this
statement seems to be simply an inference from the fact that
Histiaeus was already tyrant of his own city of Miletus. Even if it is
correct, the protests of Megabazus and their effect on Darius, who at
once removed Histiaeus to a sort of honourable captivity in Persia,
sufficiently show that according to Herodotus himself Myrcinus
would have made Histiaeus in the eyes of Darius and Megabazus a
different and altogether more dangerous sort of ruler[322].
It was still comparatively recently that Peisistratus had “rooted”
his power at Athens partly on revenues from the river Strymon.
When Histiaeus’ activities near that river so greatly alarmed the
Persians, it is hard to believe that they were not thinking largely of
the Peisistratids. Thus we have a confirmation of the view that the
Peisistratids’ Thracian revenues had been derived from the silver
mines, and the large mixed population that worked them.
When once established Peisistratus Labour and
certainly set himself to secure control of a commerce under
large amount of labour by the public works the tyranny.
that he promoted. Kallirrhoe (the Fair Spring), the best source of the
Athenian water supply, was improved by him into Enneakrounos
(the Nine Fountains)[323]. The building that shelters the actual jets is
depicted on a black figure vase[324]. Like Polycrates and the seventh
century tyrants, he was a great builder; the group of Athena slaying a
giant, excavated on the Acropolis in the eighties of the last
century[325], probably belongs to the temple that he built to
Athena[326]; his temple of the Olympian Zeus was not completed till
the time of Hadrian. Like Periander of Corinth, he severely repressed
idleness[327]. To Aristophanes, writing just a century after the fall of
the tyranny, the Athens of Hippias appeared as a city of
labourers[328].
Beloch well insists on the acute commercial instinct of Peisistratus
in getting a footing on the coast of the Hellespont by the seizure of
Sigeium[329]. Hippias not only kept his hold on the town to the last,
and eventually retired there, but actively developed his father’s line
of policy by forming a close personal connexion with the tyrants of
Lampsacus[330], and effecting a reconciliation with the Philaids, his
rivals on the European side of the strait[331].
According to the pseudo-Aristotelian Financial
Oeconomica, Hippias on one occasion troubles of the
called in the Attic coinage at a fixed tyranny before
valuation, and then reissued the same its overthrow.
money[332]. Some scholars have tried to explain away this last
statement, and assume a change in the type[333]. But if, as is natural
to suppose, χαρακτήρ in this passage means type, then the Greek
implies that no such change was made. The other actions of Hippias
recorded in the same passage are confiscations of property (front
doors, projecting top stories of houses, etc.), sold again, with no
alteration whatever, to the original owners. Six and Babelon[334]
maintain that χαρακτήρ means denomination, and that Hippias
proceeded to give the name of didrachm to a piece that had been
previously a drachm. They quote with some effect the statement of
the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens[335], ἦν ὁ ἀρχαῖος χαρακτὴρ
δίδραχμον. Their arguments, though plausible, are not decisive: but
whatever the explanation of these particular words, the whole
passage makes it fairly certain that the step was an attempt to avert a
financial crisis by some desperate manipulation of the coinage. It
points to a serious threat of approaching insolvency, such as must
have been the inevitable result of the loss of the Thracian mines[336].
No aspect of the tyranny at Athens can be The Alcmaeonid
adequately examined without some opposition to the
reference to the remarkable family that house of
Peisistratus.
from first to last with only one brief lapse
led the opposition to the tyranny[337], and after its overthrow played
the principal part in moulding the destinies of the democracy. In the
earlier part of the sixth century the Alcmaeonidae had become
extremely rich. That is the fact that emerges from the story of
Alcmaeon and the king of Lydia told in Herodotus[338]. They were at
the head of the faction of the shore, and Meyer is probably right
when he says that their “enormous” wealth was due to trade with
Lydia[339]. The fall of Lydia must have meant heavy losses to the
family[340]. It is probably no accident that Peisistratus appears to
have “rooted” his tyranny only after his rivals had suffered this great
financial blow.
Nor is it probably a pure coincidence that as the Peisistratids
secured their power by a mixture of commercial enterprise and
political intrigue, so it was by a mixture of political intrigue and
commercial enterprise that they were finally driven out, through the
Alcmaeonidae undertaking the contract for rebuilding the temple at
Delphi[341].
This building operation was regarded by the Athenian informant
of Herodotus as an expensive but effective way of purchasing divine
favour[342]. But the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens says
otherwise: “the Alcmaeonidae secured the contract for building the
temple at Delphi, and made a fortune as the result[343].” The two
versions may not be so contradictory as they at first sight appear. A
way of reconciling them is suggested by Philochorus (early third
century B.C.), who makes the Alcmaeonids accept the contract, make
their money, successfully attack the Peisistratids, and then give rich
thank-offerings to the Delphic god[344]. Isocrates and Demosthenes
confirm the statement that Cleisthenes organized the expulsion of
the Peisistratids with money secured from Delphi, but both regard
the money as a loan[345].
But Delphi recalls yet another field of Alcmaeonid activities.
According to the official Delphic records not Solon[346], but
Alcmaeon, the paternal grandfather of the Athenian Cleisthenes, was
the Athenian general in the “sacred” war which early in the sixth
century was waged by the Amphictyons, and particularly Athens and
Sicyon, against the people of the Delphic port of Krisa. The
significance of this war is discussed below in the chapter where
Sicyon is dealt with in detail. Here it is enough to notice that
Cleisthenes of Athens was, through his mother, the grandson of his
namesake the tyrant of Sicyon who took so prominent a part in this
“sacred” war. He was probably also his heir[347]. In the days of
Hippias Sicyon seems to have been still under a tyrant, but not of the
house to which Cleisthenes belonged. His name was Aeschines.
Evidence has been adduced by De Gubernatis[348] for believing that
this Aeschines was an ally of Hippias of Athens. As we shall see
below when dealing with Sicyon, his attitude towards Delphi was a
pivotal point in the policy of the Sicyonian Cleisthenes, and in his
later years Sicyon and Delphi became deadly rivals. Athens can
hardly have kept out of the feud. We know little of the course of
events, and the history of recent years shows how idle it would be to
assume that internal revolutions are always reflected in foreign
politics. But we may be sure that both in Athens and Sicyon an anti-
Delphic policy would have its opponents as well as its supporters[349].
It is quite conceivable that the Athenian Cleisthenes had once aimed
at a union of central Greece with Athens, Sicyon, and Delphi as the
three chief states of the union and Cleisthenes himself as the chief
statesman, controlling the immense treasure of the oracle and basing
on it a tyranny over the two other cities, with Sicyon controlling the
trade of the Peloponnesus and the far West while Athens did the like
for the Northern trade and developed with the Persian empire those
friendly relations which the Alcmaeonidae were still suspected of
favouring at the time of the battle of Marathon. If this is all
speculation it at least recalls the fact that the received accounts of
Cleisthenes are all centred on what he did in Athens in the few years
following the fall of Hippias. That indeed is practically all that is
known about the second founder of the Athenian democracy; but
considering his varied antecedents and his remarkable ancestry it is
well to consider how small a chapter this must have been in what was
probably a long[350] as well as an eventful life. But to return to the
short chapter about which something is known we find that the way
Cleisthenes secured his position against the banished tyrant was by
outbidding him. “He enfranchised many foreigners and slaves and
metics[351].” The Peisistratids had ruled Athens as masters.
Cleisthenes, by the stroke of genius so excellently epitomized by
Herodotus, “took the people into partnership[352].”
It was this memorable partnership that dealt the cause of tyranny
at Athens its final blow. Cimon indeed appears to have tried to make
himself all-powerful in the state by the lavish outlay of his enormous
wealth. But the result was only to cement the partnership between
his Alcmaeonid rival and the people. The army, the navy, and the
civil service became paid professions, or at least paid occupations,
and the state, with Pericles at its head, perhaps the largest and most
popular employer of the free population. Individuals of outstanding
wealth were more and more kept in their political place by having to
perform expensive liturgies. To make a public display of wealth
became a perilous thing; anyone who did so was suspected of aiming
at the tyranny and dealt with by ostracism or other effective means.
 Chapter III. Samos

The Samians had from early times been Samian trade

great shipbuilders and sailors. They were and industry in
among the first of the Greeks to adopt the the seventh and
sixth centuries
Corinthian invention of the trireme,
B.C.
somewhere about the year 700 B.C.[353], and
in most of the naval warfare of the next two hundred years they are
found playing a prominent part[354]. Still more important were the
achievements of their merchantmen. It was a Samian ship,
commanded by Kolaios, that “sailing towards Egypt, put out for
Platea (in Libya) ... and hugging the Egyptian coast, continued their
voyage, carried along by an east wind: and since the breeze did not
drop, they passed the pillars of Herakles and arrived at Tartessus,
enjoying divine guidance. That market was at that time unopened
(ἀκήρατον)[355].” The opening up of the Spanish silver mines through
the port of Tartessus, the biblical Tarshish, was an event of first-class
importance. “On their return home these Samians made the greatest
profits from the carrying trade (φορτίων) of all the Hellenes of whom
we have exact information, excepting only Sostratos the
Aeginetan[355].” The date of the Samian voyage to Tarshish appears to
have been about 620 B.C.[356].
It was a Samian, Xanthias by name, who about the same time as
this brought to Egypt “on business” the famous Greek hetaera
Rhodopis[357]. When Amasis, king of Egypt from 569 to 526 B.C.,
“showing himself a friend of the Greeks ... and to those that came to
Egypt, gave the city of Naukratis to dwell in[358],” Samos was one of
the three Greek states to set up an establishment of its own there[359].
These establishments were of course commercial. “In the old days
Naukratis was the only market in Egypt. There was no other[360].”
 Samian trade developed side by side with Samian industry. From
early times the islanders had enjoyed a great reputation as workers
in metal, especially the fine metals[361]. The beginning of the
connexion with Tartessus at the end of the seventh century gives the
latest probable date for the beginning of this industry. Samian
woollen goods were no less famous[362].
The island was not however exclusively Why no tyranny
commercial. There was a powerful landed was established
aristocracy called γεωμόροι [363]
, who till the middle of
the sixth century.
doubtless owned the rich Samian olive-
yards[364]. The late date of the tyranny in Samos is probably to be
explained by the power of the γεωμόροι. The result was something
very similar to what occurred under similar circumstances at Athens.
There may have been attempts like that made at Athens by Cylon[365],
but no tyrant appears to have established himself firmly before the
rise of Polycrates early in the second half of the sixth century. Till
then the geomoroi were sufficiently powerful to make a tyranny
impossible. Then, about 545 B.C., the Samian landowners received a
fatal blow to their power, when the Greek cities on the coast of Asia
Minor were conquered by the Persians. These cities, whether friendly
or hostile to Samos, were all equally its commercial rivals, and the
disturbances connected with the Persian conquest, which affected
them all while leaving Samos untouched, must have greatly
increased the importance of the commercial element on the
island[366].
It was within a few years of these events Polycrates
that Polycrates made himself tyrant of becomes tyrant:
Samos. The exact date is not known, but it his tyranny and
Samian trade.
was probably after[367] the Persian conquest
of the mainland, and may well have been due in part to the increased
commercial importance of Samos which resulted from that conquest.
However this may be, Polycrates, when established as tyrant, is
found controlling the commercial and industrial activities of his
state. All through his reign he was a great sailor and shipowner[368].
He built the famous breakwater in the Samian harbour[369], and was
credited with the invention of a new type of boat, called the
Samaina[370] (see fig. 9).
 The general conception of the Samian The wars and
tyrant is indeed that he used his ships in “piracies” of
naval and piratical operations rather than Polycrates and
their possible
for peaceful purposes of trade. Thucydides
commercial
says of him that “having a powerful fleet he character.
made divers of the islands subject to him,
and in particular captured Rheneia and dedicated it to the Delian
Apollo[371].” But even the capture of Rheneia, which Thucydides
seems to regard as the principal warlike achievement of Polycrates’
fleet, was one that may have had important commercial
consequences. By capturing Rheneia Polycrates became practically
master of Delos. He celebrated the Delian games[372]. Considering the
unrivalled situation of Delos it is not unlikely that the festival was
even in the sixth century the “commercial affair[373]” that it was in
later ages, and such as others also of the great Greek games appear to
have been from the days of the tyrants[374]. In that case it is not
inconceivable that the repeated purifications of Delos in the sixth
and fifth centuries may have had not only a religious signification,
but also the purpose of restricting a commercial element that was
constantly reasserting itself.
We need not be surprised to find a commercial potentate exerting
his power by means of an army or navy. War has so far in the world’s
history always stood in the immediate background of even the most
peaceful political power. There is nothing in the nature of a capitalist
government to make it anti-militarist. If, as seems to have been the
case, the early tyrants realized how seldom war does anything for
commercial prosperity except to ruin it, it only shows them to have
been men of unusual insight, as indeed there are many reasons for
thinking that they were. If Polycrates was an exception to the
generally peaceful character of the early tyranny, the fact may be
explained by his antagonism to Persia, with which he appears to have
been openly at war during part of his reign[375].
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].
On the whole therefore it seems best to accept as historical the
account of the war between Cyrus and the Samians, since though
only mentioned in late authors, it accords so well with all that is
known of the period from early sources. It is ascribed to the period
when Samos ruled the waves[381], which we have seen already to
mean the reign of Polycrates, and this indication as to date agrees
with the statement[381] that the war occurred at the end of Cyrus’
reign. It brings Polycrates into a situation which alike in its patriotic
and in its selfish side anticipates the attitude of Dionysius of
Syracuse towards Carthage. But even this war may have been in part
an attempt to maintain Samos in her commercial and industrial
position. From the Samian point of view war with Persia meant first
and foremost a struggle against Miletus. The island city and its
neighbour on the mainland had long been rivals, and the supremacy
of the one had meant the depression of the other. Miletus was now
under the Persians and had made favourable terms with her
conquerors. What Cyrus was aiming at in Anatolia is made
sufficiently plain to us by the description in Herodotus of the way
that he treated the conquered Lydians. They were to bring up their
children simply to play music and to become retail traders[382]. A
similar account is given by Zenobius: “they say that Cyrus, having
overcome the Lydians, charged them to become retail traders
(καπηλεύειν) and not to acquire arms[383].” Zenobius says nothing
about the music. There can be little doubt that the trading was the
main thing. Both writers say that Cyrus’ object was to prevent the
Lydians breaking out into armed rebellion, and this may be true as
far as it goes. But Cyrus did not treat all his rebellious provinces in
this way. It looks as though he intended to make conquered Sardis,
devoted entirely to trade and with the Persian army behind it, into
the commercial capital of his kingdom, with Miletus as its chief
seaport. This policy, if successful, would have been disastrous to the
trade of Samos. May it not have been to prevent it that Polycrates
organized the fleet and pursued the naval policy that won him such
fame and unpopularity? We have an instance of rivalry between
Polycrates and Sardis in the “laura” which he constructed at Samos,
the significance of which is discussed below[384].
In any case Polycrates employed his fleet for commercial purposes
as well as warlike. He traded with Egypt[385], which was the one
Eastern country that was during most of his reign independent of
Persia and open to Samian trade. The statement of Clytus the
Aristotelian that “Polycrates the tyrant of the Samians from motives
of luxury gathered the products of every country[386]” shows that
Polycrates had a personal interest in the transport trade. There is
unfortunately nothing to show that he employed his own vessels.
It is difficult again with the available The tyranny of
evidence completely to identify the tyrant Polycrates and
with Samian industry. He was the patron of Samian industry.
Theodorus, who was famous not only as a jeweller, but also as a
maker of metal vases[387]. The possible significance of this fact will be
seen in a moment, when we proceed to examine the statements
about Polycrates’ activities before he became tyrant. There is
however no evidence that Polycrates was himself engaged in the
Samian metal industries during his reign. For the woollen industries
the evidence is stronger. Among the things which Athenaeus[388]
declares that Polycrates, when tyrant, introduced into Samos are
sheep from Miletus. Athenaeus is here quoting Clytus. Later in the
same passage he quotes another writer, Alexis, as stating that the
tyrant imported sheep from Miletus and Attica. The sheep were of
course imported not for their mutton but for their wool: the wools of
Miletus were particularly famous. During his reign Polycrates lent
support to Arcesilaus III, king of Cyrene in “sheep-rearing Libya[389]”
and himself probably a merchant prince[390], who when banished
from his own dominions sought refuge with the Samian tyrant[391].
One reported act of Polycrates seems out The tyranny of
of keeping with the view that he was a great Polycrates and
merchant. “It is said that Polycrates struck a Samian coinage.
large quantity of local coins in lead and then gilded them and gave
them to them in payment[392].” Herodotus, our authority for this
statement, dismisses it as idle (ματαιότερος). But it is supported by
numismatic evidence[393], and the reason alleged for the issue in
Herodotus is perfectly plausible. Polycrates was resorting to a
desperate expedient for getting rid of an invader. Apart from the
question of its truth, the report is valuable as indicating that
Polycrates, like his contemporary Hippias, was credited with a
tendency to make practical experiments with the coinage. This is
borne out by another report, quoted by Suidas[394], according to
which the Samaina reputed to have been invented by Polycrates was
not a ship but a coin.
The two reports are not necessarily contradictory. The tyrant may
have introduced both the ship and the coin, like Anaxilas, tyrant of
Rhegium, who introduced the hare into his dominions and
commemorated his action by putting a hare on his coins (fig. 9). The
Samaina is found on extant Samian coins (fig. 9), some of which
appear to have circulated in Samos itself about the middle of the fifth
century, while others have been associated with the Samian refugees
who migrated to the far West in 494 B.C. and occupied Messana in
Sicily with the aid of Anaxilas of Rhegium, whose subjects they
became. The type cannot be traced back to the days of Polycrates
himself, but the numismatic evidence is not abundant enough to
make that fact decisive. As far as it goes it even inclines slightly in
favour of Suidas. If the coin type used by the refugees of 494 B.C.
appears later on the coins of Samos itself, the fact is best explained
by assuming that it was already in use in Samos before the earlier
date. Moreover one of the coins generally associated with the
refugees is inscribed with the letters Α Ι, which have no obvious
connexion with Messana or the Samians who went there, but which
do on the other hand form the first syllable of the name Aiakes, the
name of the Samian tyrant from whom the refugees fled to Messana.
Aiakes was a nephew of Polycrates, so that if the Α Ι coin is rightly
ascribed to him the Samaina type is traced back to the family of
Polycrates, if not to Polycrates himself. Aiakes had been restored to
Samos by the Persians after their defeat of the Greek fleet at the
battle of Lade. In that battle the Samian fleet, with the exception of
the ships manned by the men who fled later to Sicily, had disgraced
itself by deserting to the Persians. Aiakes profited by their
proceedings but he can hardly have been proud of them. If he struck
coins with the Samaina type it is more likely to have been because his
uncle had done so before him than from any desire to commemorate
either his own exploits, whether as a shipbuilder or a sailor, or those
of his uncle, who so successfully defied the Persian power to which
the nephew owed his throne[395].

Fig. 9. Samian coin with Samaina and Messanian

coin with hare.

In his domestic policy Polycrates won The public works

great fame as the promoter of great public of Polycrates
works. “I have dwelt the longer on the during his
tyranny,
Samians,” says Herodotus[396], “because including an
they have erected three works that surpass aqueduct and a
those of all the Greeks.” The works in harbour
question are the harbour breakwater breakwater.
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