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Polycrates, however, making light of all the counsel offered him,
set sail and went to Oroetes. Many friends accompanied him; among
the rest, Democedes, the son of Calliphon, a native of Crotona,
who was a physician, and the best skilled in his art of all men then
living. Polycrates, on his arrival at Magnesia, perished
miserably, in a way unworthy of his rank and of his lofty schemes.
For, if we except the Syracusans, there has never been one of the
Greek tyrants who was to be compared with Polycrates for
magnificence. Oroetes, however, slew him in a mode which is not fit
to be described, and then hung his dead body upon a cross. His
Samian followers Oroetes let go free, bidding them thank him that
they were allowed their liberty; the rest, who were in part slaves,
in part free foreigners, he alike treated as his slaves by conquest.
Then was the dream of the daughter of Polycrates fulfilled; for
Polycrates, as he hung upon the cross, and rain fell on him, was
washed by Jupiter; and he was anointed by the sun, when his own
moisture overspread his body. And so the vast good fortune of
Polycrates came at last to the end which Amasis the Egyptian king had
prophesied in days gone by.
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