The Press., 1897-12-16
WEALTH OF ANCIENTS
THE ENORMOUS SUMS THEY AcCU- MULATED AND SPENT.

THE ENORMOUS SUMS THEY Accu-
 MuLATED AND SPENT. Poeentases Who Disposed of Annual In-
 comes Reaching Into the MilIions-Im-
 mense Works cf Art and Skill Carried
 Out by These
 It 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 ac- cumulated wealth of the antique world at their back, and the treasures of Mexi- %, California, Australia. the Transvaal in addition, have to consider ways and means with anxious care before build ing a 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 somehCw-by war or purchase-and either means was expen- sive. There is reply to that objection equally facile-the war paid its own cost in loot. But this only leads us step backward. Tie 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- tions. the sum total must have been i'm meDse 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, its 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 on each side of every doorway. No unpracticed hand carved those reliefs. They are the work of art ists. Were all the sculptors of the em 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 We may be quite sure that work like this was highly paid-by comparison, that is, with slave labor.
 So the question recurs, How much gold and silver did these ancients pos sess7 In the Roman time men appear to have been struck with the evidence of vast wealth displayed by their predeces- sors, such as the Caesars could 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, 95S, l2O. 900 in our money at the least, for if 8 computation which Athe- nseus himself suggests be admitted the total would be about twice as large After this the statement of Diodorus- that the Pharaohs counted upon a reve- nue of elS3, 900, 900 annually from gold mines in the Bishari desert and drew | VI 0nnol hu% %ay -ic 1- crate. But when the same most valua- ble writer-who talked nonsense only when he 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 usual) 40 feet high; of Rhea equally tall, with a lion of gold at each knee and silver serpents tc correspond; Juno weighed 500 talents in front of her was a golden table. 5OC talents, upon which stood two cups, 800 talents each, and three bowls, 1900, 600 and 600 talents. These orna- ments of a single temple represented about ell, ,OOO,OO and the building was covered with gold plates
 It has been calculated that the statue of Nebuchadnezzar mentioned in Daniel would be worth e3, 500, 900; that the treasure left by David amounted to e150, ,00O. 900 in gold, e2O0, 900, 900 in silver, but the value of the Hebrew tai ent is doubtful. We are told that Pyth. GUS, seemingly a private gentlen an ot Phrygia, entertained Xerxes and all his army, with most sumptuous feasts, ltoo-and then had e4, 77O,OO left, or, as some compute. e3, 600. %. 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 then
 when the statements are so clear anc
 the means of disproving them absent
 In the Persian camp, then, and at Baby
 lon Alexander secured something like
 gro. 900, 900; at Persepolis, e18 900,
 900; at PasaRurda, trif1e of e9, 900, 900; at Ecbatana, e27O, 900. OOO-say
 G55O. GOO, 900. And Darius carried of
 e9, GOO, 900, which his murderers seized I-London Standard.
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