Note 1100 — Chapter VII · Corinth

In Naukratis, which became under Psammetichus of Egypt the chief Greek trading-centre in the country, Corinthian potsherds take the second place among the vase finds of the earlier period of the Greek settlement, Milesian coming first (Prinz, Funde aus Nauk. p. 75), though note that Corinth was not among the Greek cities that had an establishment at Naukratis, the Aeginetans being the only European Greeks to possess one. On Egypt and Miletus see above, Chapter IV. To the evidence usually quoted for Egyptian influence on Periander we should perhaps add a story told by Diog. Laert. I. 7. 3. When Periander was an old man he is said to have provided for his own death and burial in the following way. He directed two men to kill and bury a man they would meet on a certain night at a certain lonely spot. He arranged with four others that they should kill these two on their way back. The four in their turn were to be disposed of in like manner by a larger band. At the appointed hour Periander himself went to the spot to which the two had been directed and was there killed and buried by them. The essence of this story is that Periander took extraordinary precautions to prevent anyone knowing the place of his burial. Such precautions at once recall Egypt. Can the story have originated as a skit on Periander’s Egyptianizing tendencies?