CHAP. III. 



PRECIOUS METALS. 131 



hibited in his triumph at Rome 1 , on his return 

 from Macedonia after his victory over Perseus, 

 another of the successors of Alexander. 



Ptolemy is related to have returned to Egypt 

 with immense booty, containing, among other 

 articles, forty thousand talents of silver, many 

 gold and silver vessels, and two thousand five 

 hundred statues, many of them of the Egyptian 

 gods. 



When the Romans, after the conquest of Car- 

 thage, first entered Asia, and defeated Anti- 

 ochus, one of the Seleucidae, the successors of 

 Alexander, about 190 years before our era, a 

 peace was granted on condition of paying a tri- 

 bute of fifteen thousand Euboic talents, of which 

 five hundred were to be instantly delivered, two 

 thousand five hundred when the Roman senate 

 should ratify the treaty, and the remainder in 

 twelve successive annual payments. 



All the mines of gold and silver, with the 

 produce they had yielded in the long series of 

 preceding centuries, were gradually delivered 

 over to the dominion of Rome by the succes- 



1 According to Plutarch,, the money carried in this triumph 

 amounted to two thousand two hundred and fifty talents of 

 silver, and two hundred and thirteen talents of gold coin, be- 

 sides many vessels of both metals. Livy, however, deems this 

 estimate too high j but Velleius Paterculus makes it amount 

 to double as much. The last opinion is probably right, since 

 the money thus brought from Macedonia is said to have freed 

 the Romans from taxation during fifteen years. 



K 2 



