“We adopted a law that if you bought an office you didn’t get it. I admit that that is contrary to all commercial principles, but I think it is pretty good political doctrine.”—WOODROW WILSON. This final chapter will contain (_a_) a _résumé_ of the evidence already adduced; (_b_) a short general discussion of the credibility of the whole mass of extant evidence; and (_c_) an attempt to view in their proper perspective the conclusions that the evidence seems to warrant. (a) _Résumé of previous chapters_ [Sidenote: Introductory chapter.] The age of the first known metal coins is also the age of the first rulers to be called tyrants. Ancient evidence and modern analogy both suggest that the new form of government was based on the new form of capital. The modern analogy is to be found in the financial revolution which has largely replaced metal coins by paper (thereby rendering capital very much more mobile, just as was done by the financial revolution of the age of the tyrants) and has led many people to fear a new tyranny of wealth. The ancient evidence is to be found in the scanty extant writings of the sixth century B.C. (Solon and Theognis), in scattered notices about early tyrants or tyranny in fifth century writers (Thucydides, Herodotus, Pindar), in certain statements of Aristotle, in references to industrial conditions both during and after the age of the tyrants, in the history of the states where there was never a tyranny, and in the steps taken to prevent a recurrence of tyranny. If the commercial origin of the early tyranny is not explicitly formulated by any ancient writer it should be remembered how meagre are contemporary documents and how little Greek writers say about economic causes. It is true also that my view is at variance with statements of Plato, Aristotle, and subsequent writers: but their picture of the rise of tyranny clashes with known facts about the seventh and sixth centuries and is due to false generalizations from the conditions of their own days and particularly from the career of Dionysius of Syracuse. [Sidenote: Athens.]