CHAP. nr. PRECIOUS METALS. 



ferred to Babylon or Ecbatana, as the demands 

 of the great sovereign might require. Had gold 

 and silver been diffused in that as in subsequent 

 ages, and especially as in modern times, among 

 the whole of the subjects of the smaller king- 

 doms, in the form of common current money - 

 had it formed the universal medium for the ex- 

 change of all commodities, and the universal 

 standard by which their relative value towards 

 each other was measured there would have 

 been a difficulty in collecting and amassing it 

 which would have prevented the easy transfer 

 that seems to have been made from one part of 

 the world to another after each victory. 



Before gold and silver were used as coin 

 when it was deemed exclusively either a royal 

 or a sacerdotal privilege to possess it when 

 the chief depositaries of it were the palaces of 

 Solomon, of Croesus, of Pytheus, or Darius, or 

 the temples of Jerusalem or of Delphi those 

 places would form reservoirs which would be 

 easily moved with the course of conquests in 

 the direction the conquerors might appoint. 



During the short existence of the Babylonian 

 empire, between the period when the Assyrian 

 monarchy was absorbed in it, and that in which 

 it was subdued by the Medes and Persians, the 

 mass of metallic wealth had been prodigiously 

 increased in that capital. That which existed in 

 the more eastern parts of Asia had been long col- 

 lected there. Commerce had brought additions 



