The island of Samos became one of the major naval powers in the Aegean in the sixth century BC, culminating in the reign of the tyrant Polycrates.
[2] Pythagoreio has a large natural harbour, but it is very open to the south, so the fierce northerly winds pose a threat to shipping in port.
[5] The structure was repeatedly damaged by storms and earthquakes in antiquity and repaired by piling new stones on top of the old ones, making it very difficult to date.
The excavator, Angeliki Simossi thus dated the surviving structure to the early Hellenistic period, making it later and larger than that described by Herodotus.
She suggested that the structure known to Herodotus might be underneath the surviving remains, perhaps in the northern section which is covered by the modern harbour mole.