gladiator, who has long since been recognized as a copy of a dying Galatian carved at Pergamum to commemorate a victory of Attalus I over the Celtic invader. Much of Pergamene art is exaggerated and ugly, but that does not diminish its economic significance, and Mommsen is justified in describing Attalus I as the Lorenzo de’ Medici of antiquity[1444]. We have already compared the Medici with the early Greek tyrants. But it is not merely that the Pergamene rulers and early tyrants like Gyges have a common resemblance to the Italian merchant princes of the early renaissance. A distinct resemblance between the Attalids and the house of Gyges has been already recognized and developed by Adolph Holm. The two powers are much the same geographically; both are the great connecting link between the Greek Aegean and the Asiatic lands that lie to the east of it; both organize the forces of material prosperity against barbaric invasions from the north; both have money as the basis of their power[1445]. The history of Philetairos and his successors at Pergamum increases the probability that Leaf is right in his picture of the banker despots of the days of Plato and Aristotle. [Sidenote: (_c_) The rich Protogenes, financial director of Olbia about 200 B.C.] The picture is scarcely complete enough to be quite convincing, but it may be supplemented and confirmed from the history of a financial magnate named Protogenes, who flourished at Olbia probably towards the end of the third century B.C. Protogenes is known only from a single inscription put up during his lifetime to record his benefactions to his native city[1446]. The date of the inscription is not quite certain. The lettering points to the second century B.C. but does not exclude a rather earlier date, and a reference in the inscription to danger threatening Olbia from certain Galatians rather favours a date before 213 B.C. Within the space of three years Protogenes made gifts to his city amounting to 12,700 gold pieces and made up of the following items: four times he contributes to help buy off the barbarians who at this period were constantly threatening the city; twice he pays for repairs to the city walls; he built or repaired the public granary, the bazaar gateway, and the barges that brought the stone for these building operations; he redeemed for 100 pieces of gold the city plate, which was about to be put in the melting-pot by one of the city’s creditors; he pays down three hundred pieces of gold for wine which the city fathers had purchased and then found that they could not pay for; he contributes directly or indirectly to the purchase of large quantities of corn for the city; he remits to the amount of 6000 gold pieces (_i.e._ nearly half his total benefaction) private debts owed to himself or his father.