This period of Megarean history is better known than the corresponding phase of any other Greek city, thanks to the verses of Theognis. Their evidence for the character of the early tyrannies has been discussed in Chapter I. If, as there maintained, his exhortations not to be won over by gains to exalt any tyrant and his complaints about tradesmen controlling the state all point to fears of a tyranny of wealth, then it is particularly likely that his alarm may have had a historical basis in the career of Theagenes. [Sidenote: Miletus.] At Miletus during the seventh and sixth centuries[1357] there appear to have been several periods of tyranny with intervals of anarchy in between. The most famous and powerful of the Milesian tyrants was Thrasybulus, whose reign must have begun towards the end of the seventh century. While he was tyrant the city enjoyed great material prosperity. Then in the middle of the sixth she was afflicted with two generations of civil war, after which there came a great revival of prosperity under the tyrant Histiaeus. Plutarch records the names of two other tyrants, Thoas and Damasenor, but only to introduce an account of the state of things that followed their overthrow. They may have been joint successors of Thrasybulus[1358], much as the Athenians tended to regard Peisistratus as having been succeeded by Hippias and Hipparchus ruling conjointly. Or possibly Plutarch is mentioning two successive rulers of a distinct period of tyranny, the latter of whom only was deposed, in which case they are probably to be put before Thrasybulus[1359], somewhere about the middle of the seventh century. The fall of Thoas and Damasenor was followed by a struggle between two parties called Ploutis (?) and Cheiromache, names which sound remarkably like Capital and Labour.