Histories

After this the Samians came a second time with a sack, and said nothing but this: “The sack wants flour.” To this the Spartans replied that they were over-wordy with “the sack”;[*](It would have been enough (the Lacedaemonians meant) to say a)lfi/twn de/etai, without using the word qu/lakos.) but they did resolve to help them.

The Lacedaemonians then equipped and sent an army to +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos, returning a favor, as the Samians say, because they first sent a fleet to help the Lacedaemonians against +Nomos Messinias [21.833,37.25] (department), Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Messenia; but the Lacedaemonians say that they sent this army less to aid the Samians in their need than to avenge the robbery of the bowl which they had been carrying to Croesus and the breastplate which Amasis King of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt had sent them as a gift.

This breastplate had been stolen by the Samians in the year before they took the bowl; it was of linen, decked with gold and cotton embroidery, and embroidered with many figures;

but what makes it worthy of wonder is that each thread of the breastplate, fine as each is, is made up of three hundred and sixty strands, each plainly seen. It is the exact counterpart of that one which Amasis dedicated to Athena in Lindos [28.1083,36.0833] (Perseus)Lindus.