In the days of Plato Thebes contained one citizen of extraordinary wealth in Ismenias, “the man who had just recently received the wealth of Polycrates.” Ismenias is classed with Periander, Perdiccas, and Xerxes as a wealthy man who thought he possessed great power; but he is not called a tyrant. He had become rich not through his own wisdom and care, but suddenly as the result of a bequest, so that his wealth would apparently fall under a different category from that of the seventh and sixth century tyrants, and he is in fact placed by Plato in a very miscellaneous company. Plato, _Meno_, 90_a_; _Rep._ I. 336_a_. Footnote 148: See below, pp. 30 f. Footnote 149: Aristot. _Pol._ VIII. (VI.), 1316_b_. Footnote 150: _Thucydides Mythistoricus_, p. 32. Footnote 151: Rep. VIII. 562_a_; cp. 564_a_, 565_d_. Footnote 152: On tyrants as plunderers cp. Hdt. V. 92: “(Cypselus) deprived many people of their property.” So Ephorus, _F.H.G._ III. p. 392, “He banished the Bacchiads and confiscated their possessions.” Cp. Plato, _Phaedo_, 82_a_; _Rep._ VIII. end. The spoils of victory however are quite a different thing from the litigious confiscations of fifth and fourth century demagogues. The way the early tyrants used their wealth is sufficient proof that it was not mainly plunder. There is nothing of the condottiere about the typical early tyrant. Cp. H. Sieveking, _Kapitalist. Entwick. i. d. ital. Städt. d. Mittelalt._ in _Viertelj. f. Soc. u. Wirts._ VII. pp. 64 f. Footnote 153: Pol. VII. (V.), 1305_a_; cp. VII. (V.), 1310_b_, ὁ δὲ τύραννος (καθίσταται) ἐκ τοῦ δήμου καὶ τοῦ πλήθους. Footnote 154: “Pheidon and others became tyrants with a kingship to start from ... those in the parts about Ionia, and Phalaris, from their offices,” _Pol._ VII. (V.), 1310_b_; cp. _ibid._, “through starting with power, some that of kingly office,” and _ibid._, “other (tyrannies) from kings overstepping their inherited positions”; VII. (V.), 1308_a_, “attempts at tyranny are made in some places by demagogues, in other places by dynasts, or those who hold the highest offices when they hold them for a long time.” Footnote 155: Cp. also _Pol._ VII. (V.), 1305_a_, where “modern times” means since rhetoric developed and demagogues ceased to be soldiers. Footnote 156: Or else for no historical period at all. As pointed out to me by my colleague Professor W. G. de Burgh, Plato’s order is confessedly an order of ascending injustice (_Rep._ VIII. 545_a_; cp. 344_a_), in introducing which he invokes the muses of Homer and asks them not to be too serious (545_e_). Plato’s evidence on this point need not be taken so literally as that of the historically minded Aristotle. Footnote 157: Hdt. III. 82. See also Xen. _Hell._ VII. 1. 44–46; and cp. Porzio, _Cipselidi_, p. 207, n. 1. Footnote 158: