The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1897-09-23
WEALTH IF ANCIENTS
THE ENORMOUS SUMS THEY AccU-
MUrATED 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.
| 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, a learned person suggests the
inquiry only an idiot fails to be struck
| for a moment. 1t is SO curious that
| while modern states, with all the ac-
cumulated wealth of the antique world
| at their back, and the treasures of Next
| co, 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
| a 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
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-
lions, the sum total n ust 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 TIE 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 on each side of every
doorway. No Impractical 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 paddy comparison,
that is, with slave labor.
So the question recurs, How much
gold and silver did these ancients pos
sess? 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 Athen8us, and he finds that it came
to ZIG, 953, 1870, 600 in cur money at the
least, for if a computation which Athe-
nnus himself suggests be admitted the
total would be about twice as large.
After this the statement of DiOdOrus-
that the Pharaohs counted upon reve-
nue. Of e133, 900, 900 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 he repeated the words of other
men-comes to deal with Babylon he
lets himself 90. There was gold statue
of Zeus (the Greek assigned his own
gods to Babylon as usually 40 feet high;
OF Rhea equally tall, with lion Of
gold at each knee and silver serpents to
correspond; Juno weighed 500 talents /,
in front Of her was golden table. 500
talents, upon which stood two cups,
800 talents each, and three bowls,
1900, 600 and 600 talents. These orna-
ments of single temple represented
about Ell 100000, and the building
was covered with gold plates.
1t has been calculated that the statue
| Of ACKNOWLEDGMENT mentioned in Daniel
would be worth e3, 500, 900; that the
treasure left by David amounted to
| e150, 100000 in gold, e20O, 900, 900 in
silver, but the value of the Hebrew tai
| ent is doubtful. We are told that Pyth-
eus, seemingly private gentleman Of
| Phrygia, entertained Xerxes and all his
army, with most sumptuous feasts, !"
too-and then had "a, ITO, 900 left, or,
as some compute, e3,60O,. 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
100000, 900; at Persepolis, ELS 000,-
600; at Pasagurda, trifle of 80, 000,-
600; at Ecbatana, caro-, 900. 000-say
$3.50, 100000. And Darius carried off
$4,000, 900, which his murderers seized.
| London Standard.
| Life Marks Are Indelible.
We are not writing in the sand. The
II H. -