In a lecture on the Working of the Athenian Democracy delivered to the Hellenic Society at Burlington House on 3 May, 1949, Professor A. W. Gomme attacked the view ‘ that μοναρχια or principate describes with sufficient accuracy, not only Pericles' actual position, but Herodotus' and Thucydides' conceptions of it ’. To the word μοναρχια Gomme attached the meaning of absolute rule, typified in fifth-century thought, and in Herodotus, by the Persian kingship: by ‘ principate’ he meant the direct, single rule of an Augustus. To both he drew the parallel of modern dictatorship in a totalitarian state. Since he cited me as subscribing to this view in its most extreme form, in so far as I approved of E. M. Walker's remarks on the strategia in the Cambridge Ancient History and took Darius' arguments in favour of a monarchy for Persia in Herodotus iii 80–2 as ‘ Herodotus’ own justification for Pericles' unique position at Athens ', I feel that I should make some reply; and am grateful to the editor of the Journal for this opportunity of doing so. I am also grateful to Professor Gomme for letting me consult his MS. so that I have been able to take up the point with him on a surer foundation than that of memory, and have had the privilege of a second acquaintance with a brilliant lecture.