At Argos the course of events was not the same as in those cities of which I have spoken. The Argive monarchy, as we have seen[132], was not abolished but continued to exist so late as 480 B.C.: the king however was not a great power in the state: for we do not hear of any doings of any of the kings. On the other hand, the fact that the monarchy was permitted to survive shows clearly that there was no oligarchy at Argos so violent and exclusive as the rule of the Bacchiadæ at Corinth or the Eupatridæ at Athens. Since then supreme power did not belong either to the king or to the nobles, power must have been in some way divided, so that Argos had a mixed or balanced form of government: and this fact is of some interest, since it adds something to the slight resemblance between Argos and Rome which has been already noticed, by showing that in these two cities forms of government succeeded one another in the same order. In each there was first a strong monarchy: next an excessively strong monarchy or tyranny: and afterwards a mixed or balanced form of government. At Rome the three stages are marked by Servius Tullius, by Tarquin the Proud, and by the division of power between patricians and plebeians: at Argos by the early Doric kings, by Pheidon, and by the mixed form of government which was established after the decline of his power. [132] Above, pages 34, 35. II. _The Tyrannies._ The way in which the oligarchic governments were destroyed is illustrated by the successful enterprise of Pisistratus at Athens: the character of the despotisms which succeeded them by the history of Cypselus and Periander, tyrants of Corinth from 655 B.C. to 585 B.C., and by the reigns of Pisistratus and his son.