Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/275

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OF ANACREON.
7

and accordingly we find that Poly crates not only honoured him with his friendship, but even made him the confidant of his most secret counsels. How long he continued at Samos is uncertain; but it seems probable that he resided there the greater part of that prince's reign. This opinion seems also to be confirmed by Herodotus, who assures us that Anacreon of Teos was with that prince in his chamber when he received a message from Orœtes, governor of Sardis, by whose treachery Polycrates was soon after betrayed and inhumanly crucified. Anacreon, it would seem, had left Samos a short time previous to this remarkable event, and had removed to Athens; having been invited thither by Hipparchus, the eldest son of Pisistratus, one of the most learned and virtuous princes of his time; and who, as Plato assures us, sent a vessel with fifty oars to convey him across the Ægean.

Hipparchus being assassinated in the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton, he returned to his native country Teos; for after the death of Cyrus the Teians had been suffered to reinhabit their country unmolested. Here he remained, as Suidas informs us, till a fresh commotion in the state obliged him once more to fly to Abdera, where he ended his days. There is something so remarkable in the manner of his death, that it seems more