Sardis he entrusted to Tabalos, a Persian gentleman, but the gold both of Croesus and the other Lydians he gave to Pactyes, a man of Lydia, to look after (κομίζειν).... But when Cyrus had marched away from Sardis, Pactyes caused the Lydians to revolt from Tabalos and Cyrus, and going down to the sea, as was but natural since he had all the gold from Sardis, he proceeded to hire mercenaries and persuaded the population by the sea to join his expedition[726]. [Sidenote: Xerxes and the rich Lydian Pythes.] In the days of Xerxes the richest of all the Lydians was Pythes the son of Atys. After Xerxes himself, Pythes was the richest man known to the Persians of that day. His wealth amounted to 2000 talents of silver and 3,993,000 golden Darics[727]. He held some sort of rule under the Great King at Kelainai in Phrygia and owed his enormous wealth to his mines, in which the citizens of his dominions were forced to labour. When Xerxes reached Kelainai on his way to invade Greece, Pythes offered to present the whole of this immense sum to the king[728]. So stupendous a present requires a special explanation. It is not like “the gold plane tree and the vine” that Pythes had given earlier to King Darius. It looks as if he had suddenly discovered with intense alarm that Xerxes, like Cyrus before him, feared nothing so much as a man of extraordinary wealth, and as if this present was a desperate attempt to disarm the Great King’s suspicions. The father of Pythes bore the same name as one of the sons of Croesus, and Pythes himself has been thought by some modern scholars to have been the grandson of Croesus[729]. The name Pytheus (Pythes) might be due to Croesus’ relations with Delphi[730]. The evidence so far adduced has pointed to the following conclusions: metal coinage reached its final evolution in Lydia, probably in the second half of the eighth century B.C.; the title tyrant reached Greece from Lydia probably early in the seventh century; from the middle of the eighth century down to the end of the age of the tyrants all the rulers or would-be rulers of Lydia of whom we have any relevant information regarded money as the basis of political power. [Sidenote: Radet suggests that the first coins were struck by the first tyrants,] In the face of these facts it is not surprising that Radet, the scholar who has devoted most attention in recent years to this period of Lydian history, should have expressed the opinion that the earliest tyrants were also the first coiners[731]. The rest of this chapter will be devoted to examining and very tentatively developing this suggestion.