Soon after Cylon’s attempt Athens began to rival Corinth in the pottery trade, and the influence of the rich city merchants and exporters doubtless increased. But even in pottery the great vogue of Attic ware was still to come, and Solon’s measures for encouraging the growth of olives and the export of olive oil also belong to this period[184]: the importance of the landed aristocracy who owned the olive yards must have increased almost equally. No merchant therefore attempted by means of the wealth that he had amassed or the labour that he employed to seize the tyranny. The landed aristocracy were also wealthy and they too employed much labour, and it so happened that the best part of the Attic plain, where lay their estates, was situated round the city, as Cylon discovered to his cost when he seized the Acropolis. Tyranny was almost impossible. The leading man at Athens was not a mere millionaire, as in the more exclusively trading states. Solon had indeed some experience of trade[185], but he was essentially a politician with a gift for finance, not a financier or merchant with political ambitions. He became not a tyrant but a lawgiver. [Sidenote: Peisistratus makes himself tyrant by organizing a new party.] Solon tried to provide for the difficulties that he saw resulting from the existence of two evenly matched parties, the landowners of the plain and the traders of the coast. The tyranny arose from the political organization of a new interest by Peisistratus, who, to quote the exact words of Herodotus: While the coast men of Athens and those of the plain were at strife ... having formed designs on (καταφρονήσας) the tyranny, proceeded to raise (ἤγειρε) a third faction[186]. Some ancient writers represent Peisistratus as owing his tyranny to his gifts as an orator or demagogue[187]. Reasons are given in Chapter I for not accepting this view, and also for not believing that it was mainly as a successful soldier that Peisistratus secured the throne[188]. It was as founder and leader of the “third faction” of Herodotus that Peisistratus made himself tyrant, and he seems largely to have built up his influence with them by rendering them aid, doubtless financial[189]. To understand the position of Peisistratus and to ascertain the basis of his power it is obviously of the first importance that we should know who precisely were the men who made up this third faction. Unfortunately this question cannot be answered directly from the information that has come down to us. So before sifting the evidence that bears on it, it will be well to examine some later and better known phases of the tyrant’s career. [Sidenote: How Peisistratus “rooted” his power.]