Herodotus and Samos: Personal or Political?

This article addresses the reasons behind Herodotus' interest in the island of Samos. Taking as its starting point the famous passage about Samian erga (3.60), I examine Herodotus' stated and implicit reasons for his extended Samian logoi. Scholars tend to explain his interest in Samos as lying in details of his biography. I argue that any such biographical connection to the island merely reinforces stronger unstated reasons for going on long about Samos: these have to do with Periclean Athens' competition with Polycratean Samos as a historical antecedent for thalassocracy, and-not unrelated-the Samian revolt.