Chapter X: (a) Capitalist Despots of the Age of Aristotle, (b) the

Money Power of the Rulers of Pergamum_, (c) _Protogenes of Olbia_

[Sidenote: (_a_) Capitalist despots of the days of Aristotle.]

Stress has been laid on the influence that has been exercised by Dionysius of Syracuse upon all who have written about the early tyranny since he came to power. This of course does not mean that the military-demagogue type of tyrant, of which Dionysius is the supreme example, was never at all anticipated in any of its features by any of the rulers of the seventh and sixth centuries. Nor does it mean that the new order of things that culminated in Dionysius completely swamped the old. Aristotle himself was personally connected with a tyrant who appears to illustrate the survival into the fourth century of the seventh and sixth century type. The ruler in question, Hermias tyrant of Assos and Atarneus

was a eunuch, the slave of a certain banker: he went to Athens and
attended the lectures of Plato and Aristotle, and returning he
shared the tyranny of his master who had previously secured
(ἐπιθεμένῳ) the places round Atarneus and Assos. Subsequently he
succeeded him and sent for Aristotle and married his niece to
him[1416].

In this “slave, banker, philosopher and despot” Leaf sees a tyrant who owed his position to his wealth[1417]. He quotes Euaion, the pupil of Plato[1418], who not far off to the north at Lampsacus “lent money to the city on the security of the Acropolis, and, when the city defaulted, wanted to become tyrant, until the Lampsacenes gathered against him and after paying him the money cast him out[1419].” On the other side of Assos, at Cyme, the public porticoes once passed into the hands of some bankers who had lent money to the city on that security[1420]. Leaf might have gone on to quote the case of Timaeus the Cyzicene, who, like Euaion and perhaps Hermias, had been a pupil of Plato:

Timaeus the Cyzicene having granted bonuses (ἐπιδοὺς) of money and
corn to the citizens and having on that account won credit among the
Cyzicenes as being a worthy man, after a short while made an attempt
on the city (ἐπέθετο; cp. ἐπιθεμένῳ above of the predecessor of
Hermias) by means of Aridaios[1421].

The attempt failed but there can be no doubt that Timaeus like Euaion “wanted to become tyrant” by means of his wealth.

It is curious to notice that the method of securing power practised by the pupils of Plato and Aristotle is precisely that which was prescribed by our own Doctor Johnson: “No, Sir, the way to make sure of power and influence is by lending money confidentially to your neighbours at a small interest or perhaps at no interest at all, and having their bonds in your possession[1422].” In Aristotle’s own day it appears to have been followed, though without success, in the greatest commercial city of the age:

After this Anno, a man of Carthage, who in personal wealth was more
than a match for the state, was absorbed with a desire to seize
supreme power.... He stirred up the slaves that with their aid he
might suddenly crush the unsuspecting state.... This happened in the
days of Philip[1423].

Thus there is a basis for Leaf’s suggestion that Euboulos of Assos, the master and predecessor of Hermias, had made himself tyrant by similar means[1424]. But if Aristotle had before him the career of Hanno the Carthaginian, and if a whole group of his own fellow-students made the attempt, and in one case at least successfully, to become financier despots in a corner of the world particularly familiar to the philosopher[1425], how are we to explain the fact that his writings take no account of the commercial tyrant? Once more, if I am not mistaken, the cause is largely Dionysius. If, as seems probable, there was this late outcrop of attempts at a commercial tyranny, none the less the type had long ceased to play any great part in history[1426]. Hanno was a failure: moreover he tampered with the slaves of Carthage and this enabled Aristotle to classify him with Pausanias the Spartan. For Aristotle the tyrant is a soldier or a demagogue or both. Plutocracy with him means oligarchy[1427]. As he himself says, “if one individual possesses more than the rest of the wealthy, on the oligarchic principle it is right that he should rule alone[1428].” If forced to catalogue the government of a commercial despot he would probably have described it as an oligarchy of one. But it is doubtful whether the government of Hermias was strictly speaking the rule of a single individual.

An inscription now in the British Museum speaks repeatedly of Ἑρμίας καὶ οἱ ἑταῖροι[1429] which Leaf translates and explains into “Hermias and company, Bankers and Despots.” The precise nature of these companions is uncertain: but their repeated mention in a treaty suggests that Hermias tried to avoid the appearances of single rule[1430]. Lastly the personal element may have had its influence even with the great philosopher. Not only was he in close personal connexion with Hermias; but his one deviation into poetry, his remarkable ode to Virtue[1431], was written in honour of Hermias after his fall. According to one version of the story the philosopher’s devotion to the memory of his friend cost him his life[1432]. Plainly for Aristotle the ruler of Atarneus was no tyrant[1433], and it follows that Euaion and Timaeus, even if their efforts had been successful, would not have been so either. Plato on the other hand would have particular cause to regard as a tyrant the Syracusan ruler by whom he is said to have been sold into slavery for twenty minae[1434]. In short this group of would-be philosopher kings probably did as much as Dionysius himself to blind Aristotle and later writers to the true nature of seventh and sixth century tyranny[1435].

[Sidenote: (_b_) The money power of the rulers of Pergamum (283–133
B.C.).]

If Aristotle had lived another forty years he might have witnessed quite near Atarneus the rise of another and much more notable monarchy, that of the Attalids of Pergamum, which was also based almost exclusively on wealth. Pergamum had become the fortified treasury of Lysimachus when he succeeded to the Thracian dominions of Alexander the Great. The keeping of the fort and the 9000 talents of treasure that it contained was entrusted to a certain Philetairos. He was a eunuch, but well brought up, and he showed himself worthy of the trust. In spite of, or rather perhaps as the result of, the quarrels of the Diadochoi, he continued for twenty years master of the fort and of the money[1436]. There seems little doubt that Philetairos was of humble birth[1437], and that he owed his rise to this gift of finance which secured him first the management and then the possession of these 9000 talents. He began his independent career by going over from Lysimachus, whose realm lay mainly in Europe, to Seleucus, the most able of the Diadochoi in Asia[1438]. Shortly afterwards Seleucus was murdered by Ptolemy Keraunos, the Greek king of Egypt; but Philetairos, who believed firmly in the fortunes of the Seleucids, secured the friendship of Antiochus, the son and successor of Seleucus, by buying the body of the murdered king at a heavy price from Keraunos and sending it to Antiochus[1439]. Philetairos was always ready to draw upon his 9000 talents if by doing so he could purchase power. When the people of the neighbouring town of Pitane were in debt to the extent of 380 talents, Philetairos advanced a portion of that sum, and thereby secured influence over that city[1440]. Gifts were made to Cyzicus with similar intentions and results[1441]. The island of Aegina became a Pergamene possession for the price of 30 talents[1442]. These proceedings are typical of the way in which the rulers of Pergamum established and maintained their position. As Holm observes[1443] their power was a money power. Like every other political power that has hitherto arisen, that of the Attalids was partly military. Soon after the death of Philetairos and the accession of Attalus, the second ruler of the dynasty, Asia Minor was overrun by the Celtic hordes which finally settled down to a peaceful life in what was known thenceforth as Galatia. The promiscuous maraudings of these barbarians were checked and eventually crushed by Attalus and his successors. But the Attalids were still more notable for their works of peace. Under their government Pergamum became one of the most active centres of art and industry in the whole world. The city, elaborately constructed in terraces on a lofty hillside, offered a remarkably successful example of scientific town-planning, and must have involved a large and highly organized army of architects, builders, masons, and the like. The Pergamene school of sculpture flourished exceedingly. We owe to it Lord Byron’s dying gladiator, who has long since been recognized as a copy of a dying Galatian carved at Pergamum to commemorate a victory of Attalus I over the Celtic invader. Much of Pergamene art is exaggerated and ugly, but that does not diminish its economic significance, and Mommsen is justified in describing Attalus I as the Lorenzo de’ Medici of antiquity[1444]. We have already compared the Medici with the early Greek tyrants. But it is not merely that the Pergamene rulers and early tyrants like Gyges have a common resemblance to the Italian merchant princes of the early renaissance. A distinct resemblance between the Attalids and the house of Gyges has been already recognized and developed by Adolph Holm. The two powers are much the same geographically; both are the great connecting link between the Greek Aegean and the Asiatic lands that lie to the east of it; both organize the forces of material prosperity against barbaric invasions from the north; both have money as the basis of their power[1445].

The history of Philetairos and his successors at Pergamum increases the probability that Leaf is right in his picture of the banker despots of the days of Plato and Aristotle. [Sidenote: (_c_) The rich Protogenes, financial director of Olbia about 200 B.C.] The picture is scarcely complete enough to be quite convincing, but it may be supplemented and confirmed from the history of a financial magnate named Protogenes, who flourished at Olbia probably towards the end of the third century B.C.

Protogenes is known only from a single inscription put up during his lifetime to record his benefactions to his native city[1446]. The date of the inscription is not quite certain. The lettering points to the second century B.C. but does not exclude a rather earlier date, and a reference in the inscription to danger threatening Olbia from certain Galatians rather favours a date before 213 B.C.

Within the space of three years Protogenes made gifts to his city amounting to 12,700 gold pieces and made up of the following items: four times he contributes to help buy off the barbarians who at this period were constantly threatening the city; twice he pays for repairs to the city walls; he built or repaired the public granary, the bazaar gateway, and the barges that brought the stone for these building operations; he redeemed for 100 pieces of gold the city plate, which was about to be put in the melting-pot by one of the city’s creditors; he pays down three hundred pieces of gold for wine which the city fathers had purchased and then found that they could not pay for; he contributes directly or indirectly to the purchase of large quantities of corn for the city; he remits to the amount of 6000 gold pieces (_i.e._ nearly half his total benefaction) private debts owed to himself or his father.

During the three years covered by these gifts Protogenes was financial director of the city’s affairs, a position which he had reached after a wide experience of public business (πλεῖστα δὲ χειρίσας τῶν κοινῶν, τρία δὲ ἔτη συνεχῶς πάντα διῴκησεν ὀρθῶς καὶ δικαίως).

To see in this financial direction of the city’s affairs an instance of a commercial tyranny would be a pure hypothesis. It is not even certain that Protogenes made all his gifts quite voluntarily. One of his contributions for the purchase of corn was made after the demos had passed a resolution that the wealthy ought to advance money for this purpose[1447]. On one of the occasions when he paid for repairs to the town walls he did so at the invitation of the people[1448]. “Advance” and “invitation” may be euphemisms for “tax paying” and “compulsion,” and the payments made by Protogenes may have had affinity to the liturgies paid to the state by rich Athenians in the fifth century rather than to the benevolences that Lucius Tarquinius is said to have paid voluntarily for his own ends to the people of Rome. But this latter hypothesis is not better founded than the other. “Advance” and “request” may after all mean what they say. We do not know what became of Protogenes after his three years as financial director. The financial directorship may correspond to the magistracy that is said to have frequently led directly to the tyranny, _e.g._ at Corinth and Miletus. Protogenes is of course much later in date, but the Greek cities of South Russia were the home of many curious survivals. At Olbia itself for instance we find a style of pottery that in Greece proper was typical of the fifth and fourth centuries persisting apparently into the first[1449]. There are even hints that Olbia had once at least and perhaps comparatively recently gone through a social and economic revolution something like those that so often convulsed the cities of the seventh and sixth centuries just before they fell under tyrants, _e.g._ Athens before the tyranny of Peisistratus, or Miletus before that of Histiaeus. While the city was being besieged by a certain Zopyrion the Olbiopolitans had “set slaves free, given foreigners citizenship, and cancelled all debts[1450].” If this Zopyrion is the governor left by Alexander in Thrace[1451] this revolution must be dated at least a century earlier than Protogenes. If, with Grote, we refuse to accept this identification, the revolution is left dateless. In any case it shows that such upheavals did happen in Olbia, and serves to remind us how very incomplete is the material with which we are dealing. But the value for our enquiry of the Protogenes enscription does not depend on any speculations of this kind. What it does is to give us a detailed picture of an exceptionally wealthy man in an ancient Greek city state who for a considerable period largely financed his city. If Protogenes could do this in Olbia there can be nothing inherently improbable in the hypothesis that other great capitalists had done something similar in other cities. If Protogenes did not turn his position into a political tyranny, that would be no proof that others did not do so: and the fact remains that the assumption that Protogenes was not on the way to become a tyrant, or indeed that he did not actually become one, if not precisely wild[1452] is purely hypothetical.

The records of Protogenes illustrate the sort of way in which the financial magnate might win the supreme place in his city. The whole group of facts associated with his name and with those of Euboulos, Hermias, Euaion, Timaeus, Philetairos, and Attalus shows once again that at least there is nothing improbable in the theory that the power of the seventh and sixth century tyrants was built up on a similar financial or industrial basis, the more so considering the evidence adduced already for believing that conditions in the earlier period were uniquely favourable for the establishment of a money power. We have seen why the financial despots of the age of Plato and Aristotle should not have helped to preserve the memory of earlier money powers. It is no less easy to see why the same should have been the case with the rulers of Pergamum. An exceptional circumstance saved the house of Philetairos from being reproached with its mercenary basis, and curiously enough that circumstance was one which illustrates how very mercenary that basis was. When Attalus III, the last of his house, died in 133 B.C., he made the Roman people his heirs[1453]. His fortune was used by the Gracchan revolutionaries to equip the impoverished Romans whom they were restoring to the land by their agrarian laws. The dynasty too, with its clear eye for the main chance, had always consistently sought the friendship of Rome[1454]. Though most of our authorities for the history of the Attalids are Greek, the Greeks in question were all pro-Roman, with the result that we see the Attalids essentially from the Roman point of view. They stood in much the same relationship to the Romans as the house of Gyges did to the Greeks; and the Romans to whom Attalus III had left all his treasure and possessions were as little inclined to think harshly of their benefactor as were the Greeks whom Croesus had so largely benefited inclined to be critical of his “hospitable virtue[1455].” In both cases the man of business was known only as the patron of deserving charities. We have to go to rulers like the Tarquins and Peisistratids, whose history we owe ultimately to their own subjects and employees, to hear the money-power described as it really was and given its true name of tyranny.