The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-06-25

a government Office the early monarchs
raised palaces and temples by the hun
dred 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 ex-
pensive. There is reply to that OBJ
lection 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 rations, the sum total must
have been immense when such vast
numbers were employed.
But captives of war could only do
rough work They might build the
Coliseum or the Pyramids directed by
an army of skilled craftsmen. But the
sculpture of Assyrian palaces, the
painting Of Egyptian temples and
tombs, must have been effected by ar
lists, probably free, or, if slaves,
trained at great expense. 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
a mound of brick 700 acres in area, its
walls sixty 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 Sargons palace
| with oo1pcco1 OFF oh, ci5 do Of
! doorway. No unpractised hand carv-
ed those reliefs. They are the work of
artists, not made for sale when wanted
but to order, each slab telling its frag
ment of the royal annals. Were all the
sculptors Of the empire summoned to
this task, to be finished 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 a 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 possess?
! In the Roman time men appear to have
been struck with the evidence of vast
wealth displayed by their predecessors,
| 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 Athenaeus, and he finds that it came
| to e16,953, 100000 in our money at the
least; for if a computation which Athn-
naeus 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 e132, 900, 900 annually from gold
mines in the Bishari Desert, and drew
an equal sum by taxa tion--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
let's himself go. There was a gold stat
ue of Zeus-the Greek assigned his own
gods to Babylon as usual-forty feet
high; Of Rhea equally tall, with lion
of gold at each knee, and silver serpents
to correspond; Juno weighed five hun
dred talents; in front of her was gold
en- table, five hundred talents, upon
which stood two cups, three hundred
talents EACH and three bowls, twelve
hundred, six hundred and four hundred
talents. These ornaments of a single
temple represented about eleven million
pounds, and the building was covered
with gold plates. 1t has been calcula-
ted that the statue of Nebuchadnezzar
mentioned In Daniel would be worth
three and half millions sterling; that
the treasure left by David amounted to
a hundred and fifty millions in gold,
two hundred millions in silver; but the
value of the Hebrew talent is doubtful.
We are told that Pytheus, seemingly a
private gentleman of Phrygea, enter
tanned Xerxes and all his army-"with
most sumptuous feasts," too-and then
had e4,770000 left or, as some compute,
G3,600,000. The tale of Alexander's loot
Is most wonderful of all, and that is
historic; If we entertain doubts, it is flu
tile to express them when the state
ments are SO clear and the means of
disproving them absent In the Per-
The Pharaohs certainly drew a con-
of the Ptolemies, and little even then.
here and there. OF Egypt, indeed moth
siderable revenue from their gold mines
tient inquirers from a note or a hint
and multitude of inscriptions show
them receiving tribute of the precious
metal from Ethiopia and Syria in the
days of their supremacy Before and
afterwards the people were great man.
ufacturers and traders. Ptolemy Phil
adelphus left ESQ, 600 at least in his
treasury. Herodotus tells us the re-
venue of the Persian Empire, under
Darius Fystaspes, and the moderation
of the sum is assurance that he obtain
ed his figures from a competent author
ity-it was about G3,250000; but this
was cash alone. Solomon's revenue is
said to have been far greater-ovel
G7000,000 in gold, and as much in sill
yer; but it has been mentioned that
Hebrew talents cannot be computed
with certainly. That with such ar
income the Persian monarchs coulC
contrive to hoard the amazing treasures
: captured by Alexander has often beer
, questioned; but we may suppose tha
Z the revenue had increased vastly since
Herodotus wrote, and that the take!
in kind and the tribute yielded far more
/ than the returns in cash; and tht
4 plumber of Egypt, nothern India, Syria
2 and countless nations must be added
l We are told, indeed, that the Macedoni.
T an loot represented the accumulation o.
/, ages. But it is a relief, as ever in sucf
=