Although Samos was a center for trade and commerce for a long time prior, it was Polycrates "the Tyrant" who really put the island on the map in the mid-6th century BC. The monumentality that he embarked on at the Heraion was a show to all—trader, pirate, ally, and would-be conqueror—that Samos’s might under the watchful gaze of her patron goddess Hera was undisputable.
When there was every reason in the world to stay away and see the ruins, one woman traveled to Greece to get to work.
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