New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1897-12-08
WEALTH OF ANC ID
THE ENORMOUS SUMS THEY ACCu-
INFLATED AND SPENT. ',

INFLATED AND SPENT.
Potentates Who Disposed of Annual In
comes Reaching Into the Millions-Im-
mense Works of Art and Skill Carried
Out by These Rulers.
1t would be polite fiction to assert
that everybody who looks upon the
great monuments of antiquity-the
pyramids or the Coliseum, for example,
thinks of the cost and wonders where
the money came from. But when, by
chance, learned person suggests the
inquiry only an idiot fails to be struck
for moment. It is so curious that
while modern states, with all the &C.
cumulated wealth of the antique world
at their back, and the treasures of Mexi-
co. California. Australia, the Transvaal
in addition, have to consider ways and
means with anxious care before build
ing government Office, the early mon
archs raised palaces and temples by the
hundred at will. The thoughtless have
ready explanation-slave labor did it
ALL But, in the first place, the slaves
had to be procured somehow-by war or
purchase-and either means was expen.
sive. There is reply to that objection
equally facile-the war paid it's own
cost in loot. But this only leads US a
step backward. The loot must have been
enormous, and where did It come from?
In the second place, those slaves had to
be fed, and. however cheap their ra-
tons, the sgm total must have been i'm
mense when such vast numbers were
employed.
!, But captives Of war could only do
rough work. They might build the Col
iseum or the pyramids, directed by an
army of skilled craftsmen. But the
sculpture of Assyrian palaces, the paint
ing Of Egyptian temples and tombs, must
have been effected by artists, probably
free, or, if slaves, trained at great ex
pense.
When we read that the city of Dur
Sargunu was created on an empty plain,
by order of the king, in eight years,
standing on mound of brick 700 acres
in area, it's walls 60 feet high, broad
enough for seven chariots to run abreast,
and faced with stone. all the evidence
is needed to make US credit the story,
but the marvel becomes far greater
when we observe the miles of sculptured
stone that decorated Sargon's palace
with colossal bulls OF each side Of every
doorway. No unpracticed hand carved
those reliefs. They are the work of art :.
lists: We're all the sculptors of the en-.
pire summoned to this task, to be fin.
ished in eight years? But the tombs of
private individuals in Egypt must have
been painted, at the cost of the family,
by masters Of the craft. Animals and
birds show skill not to be surpassed.
We may be quite sure that work like
this was highly paid-by comparison,
shat is, with slave labor.
So the question recurs, How much
gold and silver did these ancients pos
sess? In the Boman time men appear to
have been struck with the evidence of
vast wealth displayed by their predeces-
sors, such as the Casarscould not equal.
But they escaped the difficulty with
ease by granting them riches literally
beyond the dreams of avarice. DR.. Ar
buthnot, for example, has patiently
reckoned up the amount of treasure
.heaped upon the pile Of Sardanapalus
by Athen#us, and he finds that it came
to e16,953, 1870, 900 IN our money at the
least, for Il a computation which Athe-
n@us himself suggests be admitted the
total would be about twice as large.
After this the statement of Ddodorus-
that the Pharaohs counted upon reve-
nue. of eI33, 900, 600 annually from gold
mines in the Bishari desert and drew
an equal:sum by taxation-is very mod
crate. But when the same most valua.
BILE writer-whO talked nonsense only
when be repeated the words of other
men-comes to deal with Babylon he
lets himself go. There was gold statue
of :Zeus (the Greek assigned his OWL
gods to Babylon as usually 30 feet high;
of Rhea equally tall, with lion Of
gold at each knee and silver serpents tc
correspond; June weighed 500 talents
in front of her was a golden table. SOC
talents, upon which stood two cups,
300 talents each, and three bowls,
1900, GOO and GOO talents. These orna-
:ments of "a single temple represented
about Ell 900, 900, and the building
Was covered with gold plates.
lt,has been calculated that the Statue
of Observation-Disclosures mentioned in Daniel
would lbs worth :e3, 500, 900; that the
Ttreasure left by David amounted te
el50 ,000, 1000 in gold, e20O, 600, 900 il
SILVER, hut the value of the Hebrew tai
eaIt lis doubtful. We are told that Pyth.
sens, seemingly a private gentleman o.
PMWgia, entertained Xerxes and all hi
army, "with most sumptuous feasts,
too-and then had 94,77Q, 900 left, CT
as some compute, es, $780, 20. The tale
of Alexander's loot is most wonderful
of all, and that is historic. If we enter
tain doubts, it is futile to express them
when the statements are SO clear and
the means of disproving them absent.
In the Persian camp, then, and at Baby.
Ion Alexander secured something like
$40, 1000, 900; at Persepolis, e18 Co.,.
900; at Pasagnrda, trifle Of SO, O00,
900; at Ecbatana, e27O 200, O00-say
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