Both in date and in character the corresponding period at Rome to the age of the tyrants in Greece is that which is occupied by the reigns of the Tarquins. The first king of this dynasty, Tarquinius Priscus, is said to have been the son of a rich Corinthian named Demaratus. Early in life the first of the Tarquins had settled in Rome. It was by means of his wealth that he secured the throne. Both he and his father are said to have been great employers of labour, and the accounts imply that their employees were free men. Servius Tullius, who succeeded Tarquinius Priscus, is said to have been the first at Rome to strike coins, and to have secured the support of the poor by gifts and benevolences. When the last of the Tarquins, Tarquinius Superbus, overthrew Servius Tullius and secured the throne, he did so by buying up the poorest of the common people. After his succession he is described as employing Etruscans and Roman citizens on a large scale as artizans and quarrymen. He loses the throne when he can no longer pay these employees. During the first century of the republic the established government several times thought itself threatened with attempts to restore the kingship. In each case it is the wealth or the exceptional financial position of the suspected person that causes the alarm. Early republican statesmen are repeatedly reported as charging the Tarquins with having degraded Roman citizens (from their natural position as soldiers and gentlemen) into tradesmen and artizans, a charge which implies the reverse change as having accompanied the change from kingly government to republican. The final blow to the monarchist movement at Rome seems to have been dealt when army pay was instituted, and the government as paymaster of the army became the greatest employer of paid free labour in the state. One later attempt to establish a tyranny at Rome has been suspected by Mommsen. The man he suspects of it is Appius Claudius Caecus, the censor of 312 B.C. Appius was noted for the number of his clients and the great public works that he conducted, and he probably had a close connexion with the first real coinage struck by Rome. Attention has also been drawn to the accounts of the secessions, with their curious resemblances to modern strikes and their implication of organization on the part of labour. At Ardea in North Latium about the year 440 B.C. the working-classes are described as playing a decisive part in the struggle for supreme power. At Veii in the year 400 B.C. we are told of a rich employer who became king of his city.