This comparative abundance of information is the reason why Athens has been made the starting-point of this enquiry. But even so our knowledge is meagre enough. And there is a special reason for using it with caution. So far in the history of the world there has been only one Athens. The developments that took place in the city during the first two centuries of the democracy are without parallel. Can we be certain that Athens was not already unique in the period immediately preceding? One point in which the Athenian tyranny was exceptional meets us at the first glance. [Sidenote: Athens before the establishment of the tyranny.] With the single exception of Samos, all the other famous tyrannies of the earlier type, at least in the Aegean area, arose in the seventh century. But apart from this fact it will be found that the tyranny at Athens in the sixth century followed the same course as it appears to have done at places like Corinth and Argos, Sardis and Miletus in the seventh. The more highly developed an organism is, the longer it takes to reach maturity. This is perhaps the reason why Athens in the sixth century appears in some respects to be a hundred years behind some of the cities whom she was destined so completely to eclipse. Athens was not exclusively commercial. Her large territory made her partly agricultural. To this fact may be due her failure to compete commercially in the seventh century with cities like Aegina and Corinth[181]. Hence too the late rise of the tyranny. It appears only when the commercial and industrial element had got the upper hand. There was indeed the attempt of Cylon, who conspired to make himself tyrant within a generation of the first appearance of tyranny on the mainland of Greece[182]. But Cylon failed because, though wealthy (ὀλυμπιονίκης) and influential (δυνατός), he could not possibly, in the Athens of his day, be the leader of any dominant organized commercial activity. He was merely an ambitious member of the aristocracy (τῶν πάλαι εὐγενής), connected with the great band of merchant princes only by marriage[183]. The attempt and its result are both what might have been expected from the position of Athens at the time.