despotism; but the group in which Sappho stood was that of Pittakos and Alkaios--the elected ten-years dictator who finally laid down his dictatorship, and the fierce singer who assailed him. Not in the "Roman peace" of a fixed despotism did Lesbian song reach its apex. The old problem of the culture-value of the tyrant has been raised afresh by Messrs. Mitchell and Caspari, in their abridgment of Grote's _History of Greece_. Grote's enthusiasm for democracy, they contend, "undoubtedly prevented him from doing full justice to much that was good in the non-democratic governments of Greece," notably "in his estimate of the so-called 'tyrants' of the Greek world and in his attitude towards the Macedonian Empire" (pref. to work cited, p. xv). Part of their discussion is beside the case, and proves only their general hostility to Grote as "a rationalist," to whom "every problem was a matter for rational discussion" (p. xiii). They first assert that Grote's chapter heading, "Age of the Despots," is "subtly misleading," inasmuch as there were despots at various periods in Greek history--as has been insisted by Professor Mahaffy. Then they avow that "this fact is mentioned by Grote himself," and that he "quite properly distinguishes" between the early and the late tyrannies. The counter-claim is first put in the propositions (1) that an early Greek "tyranny" was in effect "a union of one powerful personality with the poorer and hitherto unrepresented classes," favourable to individual life among the latter; and (2) that the tyrants by preserving peace and giving the people individual freedom of life promoted "the accumulation of wealth and the extension of trade at home and abroad, and enriched the Greek mind by familiarising it with the natural and artistic products of other lands" (p. xvii). There is really nothing here that Grote denied; nor do the critics attempt to show that he denies it. Grote actually said, before them, that "the demagogue despots are interesting as the first evidence of the growing importance of the people in political affairs. The demagogue stood forward as representing the feelings and interests of the people against the governing few.... Even the worst of the despots was more formidable to the rich than to the poor; and the latter may perhaps have gained by the change...." (_History_, pt. ii, ch. ix, ed. 1888, ii, 397). As regards the case of Peisistratos, on which Messrs. Mitchell and Caspari chiefly found their plea, Grote notes that his "was doubtless practically milder" than the average despotism, but that "cases of this character were rare." And to _this_ thesis, which is backed by an overwhelming mass of Greek testimony, from Herodotus to Aristotle and Plato, the critics offer no kind of answer.