It is a commonplace that the age of the early tyrants was an age of extraordinary commercial development. The invention of coinage, the most important invention in the history of commerce, dates from that age. In what personal relationship did the tyrants stand to this commercial development? They are often assumed to have been merely one of its passive products. Is it not possible that the founder of the tyranny was the man who turned to greatest advantage for political purposes the unique commercial conditions of the age in which he lived? Thucydides connects the rise of tyrannies with money making. Does not the saying χρήματ᾿ ἀνήρ which dates from this time, suggest that the tyrants were the leading members of this new class of nouveaux riches, and that they owed their political supremacy to their previous commercial predominance? The indications are of course exceedingly slight.