This completes the evidence for the credibility of our narrative[1290]. It is not conclusive. The archaeological material on which we have had so largely to rely, though it reflects the various Greek influences that are said to have affected their history, does not for instance establish Demaratus as a historical character. But it does fully establish him as a historical possibility. It disposes us to give much more weight than was customary a generation ago to statements and allusions that tend to confirm the historical basis of our narratives. We no longer pass over the possibility that Demaratus may have been a living prototype of Philip the son of Butacides[1291], and not a mere study in fiction based on the career of the adventurous Crotonian. In the light of the extremely rich collection of Greek pottery from Caere[1292], the childish story told by Strabo[1293] of how Caere got its name from the Greek χαῖρε no longer discounts his other statement in the same passage that in early times the city had a treasury at Delphi, a statement that is confirmed by Herodotus[1294], who tells us that the people of Caere consulted the Delphic oracle about the year 540 B.C. In short there is every possibility that Tarquin at Rome may have had consciously before his eyes the career of Cypselus at Corinth. The accounts here offered both of the Tarquins and of the Corinthian tyrants are admittedly conjectural: but when two such conjectures based on independent evidence are found to harmonize so well both with one another and with a broad general explanation of the narratives they deal with, it may be fairly claimed that they render one another mutual support. [Sidenote: If Tarquin is a Greek fiction, it preserves an early Greek conception of the typical early tyrant as a great capitalist.] But let us for the moment adopt the attitude of the sceptics, and assume the whole story of the Tarquins to be false. In that case the numerous Greek elements can be explained only as plagiarisms from the corresponding figures in Greek history, the seventh and sixth century tyrants. But the Greek element includes the story of Demaratus and his Corinthian workmen and his wealth, and the part that these played in the events that led up to his son Tarquinius Priscus becoming king of Rome. In other words, for the hypothetical authors of this hypothetical fiction the typical early Greek tyrant was a great capitalist and a great employer[1295]. Chapter IX. _Sicyon, Megara, Miletus, Ephesus, Leontini, Agrigentum, Cumae_ “Ne perdons rien du passé. Ce n’est qu’avec le passé qu’on fait l’avenir.” ANATOLE FRANCE. [Sidenote: Sicyon.]