Thus there is a basis for Leaf’s suggestion that Euboulos of Assos, the master and predecessor of Hermias, had made himself tyrant by similar means[1424]. But if Aristotle had before him the career of Hanno the Carthaginian, and if a whole group of his own fellow-students made the attempt, and in one case at least successfully, to become financier despots in a corner of the world particularly familiar to the philosopher[1425], how are we to explain the fact that his writings take no account of the commercial tyrant? Once more, if I am not mistaken, the cause is largely Dionysius. If, as seems probable, there was this late outcrop of attempts at a commercial tyranny, none the less the type had long ceased to play any great part in history[1426]. Hanno was a failure: moreover he tampered with the slaves of Carthage and this enabled Aristotle to classify him with Pausanias the Spartan. For Aristotle the tyrant is a soldier or a demagogue or both. Plutocracy with him means oligarchy[1427]. As he himself says, “if one individual possesses more than the rest of the wealthy, on the oligarchic principle it is right that he should rule alone[1428].” If forced to catalogue the government of a commercial despot he would probably have described it as an oligarchy of one. But it is doubtful whether the government of Hermias was strictly speaking the rule of a single individual. An inscription now in the British Museum speaks repeatedly of Ἑρμίας καὶ οἱ ἑταῖροι[1429] which Leaf translates and explains into “Hermias and company, Bankers and Despots.” The precise nature of these companions is uncertain: but their repeated mention in a treaty suggests that Hermias tried to avoid the appearances of single rule[1430]. Lastly the personal element may have had its influence even with the great philosopher. Not only was he in close personal connexion with Hermias; but his one deviation into poetry, his remarkable ode to Virtue[1431], was written in honour of Hermias after his fall. According to one version of the story the philosopher’s devotion to the memory of his friend cost him his life[1432]. Plainly for Aristotle the ruler of Atarneus was no tyrant[1433], and it follows that Euaion and Timaeus, even if their efforts had been successful, would not have been so either. Plato on the other hand would have particular cause to regard as a tyrant the Syracusan ruler by whom he is said to have been sold into slavery for twenty minae[1434]. In short this group of would-be philosopher kings probably did as much as Dionysius himself to blind Aristotle and later writers to the true nature of seventh and sixth century tyranny[1435]. [Sidenote: (_b_) The money power of the rulers of Pergamum (283–133 B.C.).]