But we find also that these descriptions go back only to Aristotle and have their source in fifth and fourth century conditions. Even if they went further back, the objection just raised against the commercial explanation applies still more strongly here. Kings and rulers who govern in fact as well as in name are generally something of public speakers or soldiers. It is almost an impossibility to find a self-raised ruler who cannot be described as either a demagogue or a polemarch[1458].
Similarly with the notices about important offices of state alleged to have been held by various tyrants before they attained to supreme power. They are indeed among the most reliable items of information that we possess about the early tyrants. But their significance can be easily overrated. If ever a merchant who was aiming at the tyranny sought to strengthen his political influence by obtaining office, the record of his magistracy would be much more likely to be preserved than that of his commercial successes. When we come to the detailed evidence as presented in the previous pages the balance in favour of the commercial theory may be claimed as decisive.
If once the commercial origin of the tyrants’ power is admitted, the various facts recorded about individual tyrants certainly gain in meaning and coherence. The mercenaries, the monetary reforms and innovations, the public works, the labour legislation, the colonial policy and the commercial alliances with foreign states, which have been repeatedly found associated with the early tyrants and which give the preserved accounts of them such a distinct stamp, become far more significant if it is granted that the tyrant’s power was based on his control of the labour and trade of his city. As has been already observed, the fact that a theory explains the connexions between an obviously connected group of phenomena is no proof of its truth: but on the other hand a theory which fails to explain satisfactorily such a connexion is at an obvious disadvantage as compared with one which does. That is one further reason why the typical tyrant is not to be explained as a successful soldier or demagogue whose riches came to him suddenly at the same moment as his throne. The adventurer of either of these types might indeed further the commercial developments of the city that he had seized. It would be of course to his interest to do so. But as a general rule the man who has secured a fortune at a single stroke does not care to improve it by years of patient and organized effort. If all or any considerable number of the tyrants reviewed above had owed their positions to their sword or their tongue, there would inevitably have been some cases of commercial retrogression under the tyrannis, whereas in fact there are none.