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the treasures acquired by Alexander, in Susa and Persia, exclusive of that found in the Persian camp and in Babylon, said to have amounted to 40,000 or 50,000 talents; the treasure of Persepolis rated at 120,000 talents; that of Pasagarda at 6,000; and the 180,000 talents collected at the capture of Ecbatana; besides 6,000 which Darius had with him, and were taken by his murderers. 66 Ptolemy Philadelphus is stated by Appian to have possessed treasure to the enormous amount of 740,000 talents;" either "890 million dollars, or at least a quarter of that sum;" and fortunes of private individuals at Rome show the enormous wealth they possessed. "Crassus had in lands $8,072,915, besides as much more in money, furniture, and slaves; Seneca, $12,109,375; Pallas, the freedman of Claudius, an equal sum; Lentulus, the augur, $16,145,805; Cæc. Cl. Isidorus, though he had lost a great part of his fortune in the civil war, left by his will 4,116 slaves, 3,600 yoke of oxen, 257,000 other cattle, and in ready money $2,421,875. Augustus received by the testaments of his friends $161,458,330. Tiberius left at his death $108,984,375, which Caligula lavished away in less than one year; and Vespasian, at his succession, said that to support the state he required quadrigenties millies, or $1,614,083,330. The debts of Milo amounted to $2,825,520. J. Cæsar, before he held any office, owed 1,300 talents, $1,279,375; and when he set out for Spain after his prætorship, he is reported to have said, that 'Bis millies et quingenties sibi deesse, ut nihil haberet,' or 'that he was $10,091,145 worse than nothing.' When he first entered Rome, in the beginning of the civil war, he took out of the treasury $5,479,895, and brought into it at the end of it $24,218,750; he purchased the friendship of Curio, at the commencement of the civil war, by a bribe of $2,421,856, and that of the consul, L. Paulus, by 1,500 talents, about $1,397,500; Apicius wasted on luxurious living $2,421,875; Caligula laid out on a supper $403,625; and the ordinary expense of Lucullus for a supper in

the Hall of Apollo was 50,000 drachms, or $8,070. The house of Marius, bought of Cornelia for $12,105, was sold to Lucullus for $80,760; the burning of his villa was a loss to M. Scaurus of $4,036,455; and Nero's golden house must have cost an immense sum, since Otho laid out in furnishing a part of it $2,017,225." But though Rome was greatly enriched by conquest, she never obtained possession of the chief wealth of Asia; and the largest quantity of the precious metals was always excluded from the calculations of ancient writers.

The whole revenue of the Roman Empire under Augustus is "supposed to have been equal to 200 millions of our money;" and at the time of his death (A.D. 14) the gold and silver in circulation throughout the empire is supposed to have amounted to $1,790,000,000; which at a reduction of I grain in 360 every year for wear, would have been reduced by the year A.D 482 to $435,165,495; and when the mines of Hungary and Germany began to be worked, during the seventh and ninth centuries, the entire amount of coined money was not more than about 42 at the former, and 165 or 170 million dollars at the latter, period; so that if no other supply had been obtained, the quantity then circulating would long since have been exhausted.

"The loss by wear on silver" is shown by Mr. Jacob “to be four times that of gold;" that on our money is estimated at more than one part in a hundred annually; and "the smaller the pieces, the greater loss do they suffer by abrasion.' "The maximum of durability of gold coins seems to be fixed at 22 parts, in 24, of pure gold with the appropriate alloys. When the fineness ascends or descends from that point, the consumption by abrasion is increased."

It is from its ductility that gold wears so much less than silver; and many ancient gold coins (as those of Alexander and others), though evidently worn by use, nearly retain their true weight, from the surface being partly transferred into the adjacent hollows, and not entirely rubbed off as in silver.

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The quantity of the precious metals, formerly used for the purposes of luxury, greatly diminished after the decline of the Roman empire, and in the middle ages they were sparingly employed except for coinage; ornamental work in gold and silver, mostly executed by first-rate artists, being confined to men of rank, till the opening of new mines added to the supply; which was afterwards increased by the abundant treasures of America; and the quantity applied to ornamental purposes then began to vie with that of olden times.

TOTAL VALUE OF GOLD.

M. Leon Faucher even calculates the annual abstraction of the precious metals from circulation by use for luxury, disasters at sea, and export, at 25 million dollars, in Europe and the United States

The silver from the American mines exported to Europe in 100 years, to 1630, gave an addition to the currency of 5 million dollars annually, besides that used for other purposes, or re-exported; and from 1630 to 1830 from 71⁄2 to 10 millions annually; an increase in the quantity used for currency having taken place, as well as in that exported to India, and employed for purposes of luxury.

Humboldt states the whole quantity of gold from the American mines, up to 1803, to be 162 millions of pounds in weight, and of silver 7,178 millions, or 44 of silver to 1 of gold.

Again, the total value of gold produced during three centuries to 1848, including that from Russia, has been estimated at $2,825,000,000; and the total annual quantity of gold, before the discovery of the Californian fields, has been reckoned at about $50,000,000. That from California and Australia already amounts yearly to $170,000,000 (or 3 2-5 times as much as previously obtained), and is still increasing; but though far beyond the supply afforded by the discovery of America, the demand made upon it by the modern industry of man, together with the effect of rapid communication, and of the extension of trade, as well as by

the great deficiency of gold in the world, will prevent its action being felt in the same way as when the American supply was first obtained; and still less will be the effect now, than it would have been in ancient times, if so large and sudden a discovery had then been made. For, as Chevalier says, "Vast as is the whole amount of gold in the world, it sinks into significance when contrasted with the aggregate product of other branches of human industry. If they increase as fast as the gold, little or no alteration will take place in its value; which depends on the relation between it and the annual production of other wealth."

According to another calculation, all the gold now in the world is supposed to be equal to about $3,410,000,000; but the whole amount of either of the two precious metals in old times is not easily ascertained, nor can any definite comparison be established between their former and present value. And still less in Egypt, than in Greece and Rome, no standard of calculation being obtainable from the prices of commodities there, or from any other means of determining the value of gold and silver.

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DOMESTIC UTENSILS.

The immense number and variety of statues, lamps, urns, articles of domestic use, in metal or earthenware, etc., discovered at Herculaneum and Pompeii, have rendered the Museum at Naples an inexhaustible treasury of information relative to the private life of the ancients. To give an adequate description of the richness and variety of its contents would far exceed the whole extent of this work, much more the small space which it can have; but that space can not be better occupied than in describing some few articles which possess an interest from the ingenuity of their construction, the beauty of their workmanship, or their power to illustrate ancient usages or ancient authors.

Writing implements are among the most important of the latter class, on account of the constant mention of them, as well as of the influence which the comparative ease or difficulty of producing copies of writing is always found to exert over society. On this head there is no want of information. The implements used are frequently mentioned, especially in familiar writings, as the letters of Cicero, and their forms have been tolerably ascertained from various fragments of ancient paintings.

It is hardly necessary to state that for manuscripts of any length, and such as were meant to be preserved, parchment or vellum, and a vegetable tissue manufactured from the rush papy

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