Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, and friend of Anacreon and art and literature generally; formed an alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, struck with his prosperity, ascribed it to the envy of the gods, insinuating that they intended his ruin thereby, and advised him, in order to avert his impending doom, to throw the most valuable of his possessions into the sea, upon which he threw a signet ring of great price and beauty, to find it again in the mouth of a fish a fisherman had sold him; still, though upon this Amasis broke alliance with him, his prosperity clung to him, till one day he was allured by a Persian satrap, his enemy, away from Samos, and by him crucified to death, 521 B.C.