Encyclopedia › People

Syloson of Samos

Exile who became Persian-backed tyrant of Samos, about 520 to 517 BCE

In the game: Level 2: The Spear-bearer

Syloson was a brother of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos. Herodotus says he gave a red cloak to the young Darius in Egypt, and that Darius later made him ruler of Samos with a Persian force. The story is the Greek account of how a favour was repaid at the Persian court.

In the game: The game names Syloson in the Chronicle's entries and the Encyclopedia's event articles, not in a level of his own, and he has no mechanic. The Memphis market entry mentions him giving his red cloak to the young Darius.

The cloak in Memphis

Ancient account

Herodotus says Syloson had been driven out of Samos by his brother Polycrates and was in Egypt with Cambyses' army. He was walking in the market of Memphis in a red cloak when Darius, then a spear-bearer in Cambyses' guard and of no rank, admired it and wished to buy it. Syloson gave it to him as a gift.

Herodotus 3.139

Darius repays the gift

Ancient account

Herodotus says that after Darius became king, Syloson came to Susa and presented himself as the man who had given him the cloak. Darius thanked him and offered gold and silver. Syloson asked instead for Samos, to be taken without bloodshed or enslavement.

Herodotus 3.140

The Persian conquest of Samos

Ancient account

In Herodotus's telling, Otanes led a Persian force to Samos and took the island after fighting in which many Samians died. Syloson received the island, which Herodotus describes as largely emptied of people. The date of the conquest is not certain; it is usually placed about 520 to 517.

Herodotus 3.141-149

How reliable is the story

Disputed

Only Herodotus gives the cloak episode, and it has the shape of a moral tale about gratitude. Historians accept that Samos came under Persian control and had a Persian-backed ruler in this period. Few treat the details of the cloak, the market scene or Darius's rank at the time as established.

P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002

A proverb about Syloson

Later legend

Strabo and other later writers preserve a Greek saying about Syloson and wide open spaces, which they explained by the emptying of Samos. The explanation was recorded long after his time and is better treated as popular tradition than as evidence of what Syloson did.

Strabo, Geography 14.1