The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1898-01-08
WEALTH OFANCIENTS
THE ENG.iMOUS SUMS THEY ACcu-
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, bv
chance, a learned person g the
inquiry only an idiot fails to be struck
Tor a moment. 1t 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 a government Office, the early mon
archs raised palaces and temples BY the
hundred at will. The t~houghtless have
ready explanation-slave labor did it
all. But, in the first place, the slaves
a to be procured somehow-by war or
purchase-and either means was exren-
slve. There is a reply to that objection
equally facile-the wal paid its 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 "a
lions the sum 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 All
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 or a mound Of brick 700 acres
i'll area, its walls so 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 s%culptured
tone 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-.
plre summoned to this task. to be fin.
lshed 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 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
heared upon the pile Of Sardanapalus
by Athenaus, and he finds that it came
TO ZIG, 1888, l20, 600 in our money at the
least, for if a computation which Athe-
naus 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-
u of el33, 600, 600 annually from gold
mines in the Bishari desert and drew
an equal sun 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 go. There vas a gold statue
Of Zeus (the Greek assigned his own
gods to Babylon as usual 40 feet high;
Of Rhea equally tall, with a lion of
gold at each knee and silver serpents to
corresponds; Juno weighed 800 talents
in front Of her was a golden table. 800
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 eli 600, 900, and the building
was covered with gold plates.
1t has been calculated that the statue
Of Nebuchadnezzar mentioned in Daniel
would be worth SO, 800, 900; that the
treasure left by David amounted to
$50, 900, 600 in gold, goo, 600, 900 in
silver, but the value of the Hebrew tai.
ent is doubtful. We are told that Pyth-
Gus, seemingly a private gentleman Of
Phrygla, entertained Xerxes and all his
army, with most sumptuous feasts,"
too-and then had a, 10, 600 left, or,
as some compute, IS, 500, 70. The tale
Of A~le2ander'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 d%isproving them absent.
In the Persian camp, then, and at Baby
lon Alexander secured something like
go, 600, 600; at Persepolis, Els OOO,-
900; at Pasagurda, a trile Of 50, OOO,-
900; at Ecbatana, G27O, 900, O00-say
$3.50, 900, 600. And Darius carried off
SO, OOO, 900, which his murderers seized.
London Standard.