WORLD'S GREATEST HOARD

Evening Star, Issue 19326, 12 August 1926, Page 9

WORLD'S GREATEST HOARD

BUSIED TREASURE IN MESOPOTAMIA The greatest hoard of gold in tbo world, declares Mr If. A. Wright, in the June ‘Nineteenth Century,’ is buried at ancient Ecbatatana, now modern Ramadan, south of the Caspian Sea. This enormous hoard was the royal treasure of Persia, buried there by Darius after his defeat by Alexander the Great at Arbcia, near Nineveh. Darius got away with his baggage in the darkness, but when Alexander followed him and engaged in the pursuit which resulted in Darius’s death the Persian King was “ travelling light,” with a few companions. Mr ‘Wright thinks that the existence of the treasure was known or suspected by the Romans, and that when they were particularly in need of money their leaders organised their disastrous Eastern expeditions in the secret hope of finding it. This, Jie thinks, is the explanation of the calamitous Parthian wars, in which the regular legions, instead of attacking the rich cities of the south, were throwm in vain against the mountain w'all, and broken up by the irregular tactics of the Parthian light horsemen. Crassus, the. richest man in Romo, perished thus at Carrhac. His head was cut off and sent to tho Parthian King. It arrived at a very opportune moment, when a group of strolling Greek players were performing the ‘ Bacshao ’ before him. Molten gold was poured into tho mouth, and the head was used in tho play instead of tho property head of_ Pentiums. Antony frittered away his chance of defeating Octavius for the lordship of the world by wasting 20,000 men and twm years on those mountains. Octavius’s son Gams, and Tiberius’s son Germanicus, and then tho Emperor Trajan died trying to penetrate them. Tho treasure, wherever it is, is enormous. In tho East gold was more than money. It w r as tho mystic source of life and power. Therefore Eastern kings could never have enough of it. In tho council chamber of tho Persian monarch was a groat plane tree of gold, which was continually being increased. Plate absorbed much, but gold bullion accounted for the bulk of it. This Persian treasure was the accumulation of centuries of far-flung labor and conquest. Where tho rivers of Asia Minor run down in flood to the sea naked slaves stretched sheepskins, and held them taut against tho tide, so that they might catch in the fleeces tho grains of golden sand born© down in tbo turbid tide. Phoenician caravans traded cloth for gold in Southern Arabia, and Indian expeditions ransacked the dust of desert anthills. There in Mesopotamia rests that vast hoard. Mr Wright believes that tho archicologist may now suc-po-pd where the lemon failed. Bagdad would be a convenient base. But possibly the advice of the poet Horace to Augustus is still the wisest: But let them dare despise tho gold Which still lies hid—and better so— Nor seek in mortal-hand to bold What gods taboo.