The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1908-02-15

foreign divinities, in whom he was
only remotely interested, sum rival
ing the total combined gifts of all
sorts made by both Carnegie and
Rockefeller.
We have a long list of other tenn
pies of which he was patron, but
this single gift is the only one OFF,
cially recorded whose records we
know. The gifts to his own temples
are unknown, but since no one in an
cient or modern times is likely to ex-
haust himself on foreign missions.
this gift must be regarded as a small
part Of his fortune. This single gift
shows that any estimate of the riches
of Croesus that does not count his
wealth by the billions is wide of the
mark
The royal house to which Croesus
belonged had held the power of Lydia
for many generations: his four pred
ecessors had reigned more than one
hundred and fifty years. The first of
the dynasty. Gyges, had usurped the
throne. Among all the different ira
ditions about him and his usurpatiOn
there is no doubt of his enormous
wealth. Indeed, Gyges was quite as
famous in his own generation as was
Croesus in his The obscure position
OF Lydia at that time makes one think
that Gyses won his throne by his
wealth, rather than his wealth by his
throne. Men were not made kings
then by Simon says thumbs up
method more than now. In Gyges
the business interests of Lydia
usurped the throne. Business man
that he was, he became an imperial
list, and extended his trade by means
of his troops. This policy was the
one followed by each of his success
ors, who, one after the other, pushed
out the military and commercial
boundaries of Lydia. They were all
militant capitalists.
When Croesus' concentration OF
wealth had run its course, the people
were exhausted. they had lost heart
and hope. Whatever mysterious
means may have called Cyrus to Ly-
dia, and however misfortune may
have joined in the issue. the people
became an easy offering to the power
of Persia. There were no latent re-
sources, no recuperative ability. The
fall was complete and Lydia never
rallied to play a role in the worlds
history; there has been no Lydian
government and no Lydian people
since. In few years her language
was forgotten and even the name all
but unknown. Just few miles from
the border of Lydia, at the same time.
was city whose wealth was so wide
~ diffused that for several centuries
and until its fall, it had but one citi-
zen who ever owned as much as
5000, 900, and this he is said to have
obtained, not from his fellow-citizens.
but from spoils left by Xerxes, and
there were only two or three families
who had estates as great as 100000.
Yet this city furnishes one-half of the
ten or twelve really great men of the
world. Every schoolboy knows of
Scion, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and
Demosthenes, yet not even the expert
can name scholar, a poet, scientist
or a philosopher of Lydia. The few
writer's who have preserved for us
the accounts of Lydia were themselves
Greek, or at least used the language
of Greece.
The disparity in remains of works
of art is almost as great as in the lit
erature. Every traveller is awed by
the ruins and every art gallery is full
of the reproduction Of the artistic
marvels of Greece, while Herodotus.
who Travelled through Lydia within
century of the time Of Croesus,
makes this striking comment: "Ly-
dia, unlike most countries, has scarce
ly any wonders for the historian to
describe" and the only thing he
finds worthy of description is huge
funeral mound erected in memory of
the father of Croesus.
What better illustration could be
found for the difference between diff
fused and concentrated wealth than
the examples of Athens and LYDIA
From The Independent.