The statements just quoted have all been often regarded with extreme scepticism. The reasons for this scepticism have been examined in the chapter on Rome. It is impossible to resume them here. If my conclusions are not entirely wrong, the scepticism of the last century represented an excessive reaction against the undue credulity of earlier ages. Recent archaeological discoveries enormously increase the probability of the narrative in its main outlines. But if after all the sceptics are right on this particular question, and the Tarquin narrative is a fiction, it is none the less of historical value, and confirms the view that the early tyrannis was commercial, since, if fiction, it must be an early Greek fiction, preserving an early Greek conception of the typical early tyrant as a great capitalist. [Sidenote: Other early tyrannies.] In Chapter IX we surveyed the evidence for the origin of the early tyrannies at Sicyon, Megara, Miletus, Ephesus, Leontini, Agrigentum, and Cumae. The material is scanty and it is enough here to recall that as far as it goes it supports the theory of a commercial origin. At Sicyon the tyranny is founded by a tradesman the son of a tradesman. At Megara Theagenes rises to power as the result of what looks very like the creation of a corner in the staple product of his city. At Miletus and Leontini we find tyrants arising as the result of something like class war between rich and poor, while a later tyrant of Miletus tries to establish a great political position by getting control of the mines and miners of Thrace. At Ephesus and Cumae the tyrants’ power is said to be based on the money that they distributed among the poorer classes, while at Agrigentum the tyrant is definitely stated to have secured the tyranny through his position as a great employer. [Sidenote: Capitalist despots of later ages.] In the times of Aristotle there are several cases in the Pergamene district of rich bankers and the like making attempts, of which one at least was successful, to secure supreme political power in their cities by means of their wealth. The close personal relationship in which Aristotle stood to some of them partly explains why they are not classed by him as tyrants. Not long afterwards the far more important power of the rulers of Pergamum owed its origin entirely to the enormous wealth of the founder of the dynasty. Later still at Olbia chance has preserved an inscription which records how a very rich Olbiopolitan named Protogenes became “financial director” of his city. Though there is no evidence that Protogenes ever became a tyrant the inscription shows that the sort of position which we have imagined to have been normally built up by the would-be tyrant of the seventh or sixth century was actually secured some three or four centuries later by a wealthy individual in this remote and backward Greek city on the Black Sea. (b) _The credibility of the evidence as a whole_