CHAP. in. PRECIOUS METALS. 



treasure collected and expended by Solomon be 

 true if the mines of Egypt produced but one 

 quarter of the gold and silver which, according to 

 Diodorus, was inscribed in the palace of Thebes 

 and if the treasure affirmed to be in the pos- 

 session of Crcesus^and Pytheus approached near 

 to the amount at which Herodotus represents it, 

 there seems good grounds -to conclude that the 

 whole spoil of Persia might amount to the sum 

 at which Appian has stated it, or more than 

 seven hundred thousand Ptolemaic talents, or 

 upwards of forty millions sterling. The gold 

 and silver which was in existence, at least the 

 greater part of it, appear in that age and state of 

 society to have followed in the train of the con- 

 querors. Persia had conquered all that part of 

 the world in which the greater portion of those 

 metals were in use ; for with the Romans little 

 was to be found in that age ; and it can scarcely 

 be thought that forty or fifty millions, or even 

 a larger amount, is an extravagant estimate of 

 the coined and uncoined precious metals that 

 could be collected in the Asiatic. part of the 

 world. 



Without presuming such a quantity to have 

 existed, perhaps without a much higher estimate, 

 it will be impossible to account for the quantity 

 at later periods, when the more clear and vera- 

 cious statements of the Roman writers represent 



VOL. I. K 



