Paragraph 139 139. After this king Dareios took Samos before all other cities, whether of Hellenes or Barbarians, and for a cause which was as follows:—When Cambyses the son of Cyrus was marching upon Egypt, many Hellenes arrived in Egypt, some, as might be expected, joining in the campaign to make profit, 122 and some also coming to see the land itself; and among these was Syoloson the son of Aiakes and brother of Polycrates, an exile from Samos. To this Syloson a fortunate chance occurred, which was this:—he had taken and put upon him a flame-coloured mantle, and was about the market-place in Memphis; and Dareios, who was then one of the spearmen of Cambyses and not yet held in any great estimation, seeing him had a desire for the mantle, and going up to him offered to buy it. Then Syloson, seeing that Dareios very greatly desired the mantle, by some divine inspiration said: "I will not sell this for any sum, but I will give it thee for nothing, if, as it appears, it must be thine at all costs." To this Dareios agreed and received from him the garment.
Paragraph 140 140. Now Syloson supposed without any doubt that he had altogether lost this by easy simplicity; but when in course of time Cambyses was dead, and the seven Persians had risen up against the Magian, and of the seven Dareios had obtained the kingdom, Syloson heard that the kingdom had come about to that man to whom once in Egypt he had given the garment at his request: accordingly he went up to Susa and sat down at the entrance 123 of the king's palace, and said that he was a benefactor of Dareios. The keeper of the door hearing this reported it to the king; and he marvelled at it and said to him: "Who then of the Hellenes is my benefactor, to whom I am bound by gratitude? seeing that it is now but a short time that I possess the kingdom, and as yet scarcely one 124 of them has come up to our court; and I may almost say that I have no debt owing to a Hellene. Nevertheless bring him in before me, that I may know what he means when he says these things." Then the keeper of the door brought Syloson before him, and when he had been set in the midst, the interpreters asked him who he was and what he had done, that he called himself the benefactor of the king. Syloson accordingly told all that had happened about the mantle, and how he was the man who had given it; to which Dareios made answer: "O most noble of men, thou art he who when as yet I had no power gavest me a gift, small it may be, but nevertheless the kindness is counted with me to be as great as if I should now receive some great thing from some one. Therefore I will give thee in return gold and silver in abundance, that thou mayest not ever repent that thou didst render a service to Dareios the son of Hystaspes." To this Syloson replied: "To me, O king, give neither gold nor silver, but recover and give to me my fatherland Samos, which now that my brother Polycrates has been slain by Oroites is possessed by our slave. This give to me without bloodshed or selling into slavery."