A PYRAMID OF TREASURE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11949, 20 May 1933, Page 9

A PYRAMID OF TREASURE

RICHEST MEN WHO EVER LIVED.

The .£10,000,000 estate‘of Sir Goo. Wills proved the famous tobacco king to have been one of the richest mon in England. How does this fortune compare with those of the rich men of other countries—and the rich men of the past whose names have long since been forgotten ?

If riches .are to be measured by the cost of living, then some of the plutocrats of the past have not been •entirely outclassed hv Henry Ford, now hailed as the first dollar billionaire in history. Herodotus, Diodorus, and Plutarch give us a- -few dazzling glimpses of wealthv men in antiquity. The first, almost lost in the mist of legend, was rhe Egyptian Pharaoh Raineses HE, who reigned about 3060 years ago. He surpassed all predecessors in the wealth ho possessed and in his fondness for its accumulation.

PH AR AO IPS '£160,060,000. Diodorus estimates this Pharaoh's fortune at 400,000 talents, which would he cbout £100,000,000 iu actual money to-day. In the purchasing power of chat period it was equivalent to twenty times this amount. Raineses, therefore, was worth £2,000,600.000 in the buying value -of his day.

To show how far money would: go a thousand years before Christ, it is only necessary to mention that a fat ■ox could ho bought for 4s or less ; ibat a busliol of wheat would bring ■sd in the market; that a day’s wage was from 5d -to 9d. For the preservation of his enormous hoard of treasure Rauieses Iff. bad a special stone edifice built adjoining his palace. .But Herodotus adds that a- dishonest architect ■ contrived a loose block in the wall, which, when removed, would admit a man to tons ct gold. Apparently ho was afraid to use his secret entrance, but on bis deathbed he told liic two sons about it. and they helped themselves to riches, until discovery put an end to their easy money.

Up to a few years ago such tales from Herodotus and Diodorus were considered samples of Oriental imagination: but since the golden disclosures of Tutankhamen’s tomb—and he was one of the least °f Hi© Pharaohs —the untold wealth of these sons of R-a has entered the realms of realitv. TONS OF GOLD.

Small wonder that they plated their household furniture with precious metals and encrusted their common domestic utensils with gems. Incidentally, how tbe=o old Pharaohs could command labour! Cheops, who, came somewhat later than Ramoses 111., kept 100.000 men at- work rm his pyramid for r wen tv years. Furthermore, from modern deduction, based on inscriptions and various remains. it is evident that this army of pyramid builders worked 'with svsteuiatic efficiency with tools and science that may he. compared with methods and means employed 1 in a modern high-powered industrial plant-. Amazement grows at the wealth and achievements of the Egyptians when it is known that their population never went much beyond toe 7.000,000 mark. However, they knew how to make the most of their land, discipline themselves into an organic whole, and rank* conquered peoples work for them. • , Croesus is another hero dotus. Nobody knov s how rich this Lydian king was, hut his. name become a synonym for fabulous weali i. An idea of his possessions may he had from a , propitiatory offering he sent to the Delphic Oracle. This hid for success in his campaign against the Persian host consisted of a pyramid of 117 bricks, some of them solid gold weighing 400 lb. apiece {writes E. AY. Thomas m the “Sunday Express”). The whole was surmounted by a golden lion weighing SOOlb. There were howls of gold, silver, necklaces, and! money Altogether the gift aggregated about £2,000,000 at current valuation; but again it is necessary to mu - tiply by. twenty to got the purchasing value of' that period. AVe see it, then, as a little present of £40,000,000 given to the gods. Yet espi this tribute the Oracle , could not give him tlio victory he craved. Certain of. Croesus’s relatives seem to have been-, quite as -well hff ns m himself. Pythias, one of Ins distant, kin,: is pictured as giving Xerxes a ■token of' his' esteem in the form ot money to the, amount of £4,300,000. When Xerxes • hesitated, Pf 11 h ‘ sured him that, it was a more' trifle that he happened to. have on. hand.

HISTORY . REPEATED. Multiply Hhat by twenty also and it 'J&amesf W* the purchasing power of the ,time. It safe to .assume! that there have been few gifts in history equal to this one, • . Solomon had-an income equivalent .to a year to-day, W placevhnn.in/ the Rockefeller

class. Eardanapalus and Nero wore golden over-lords, and Lueullus spent lortunes on feasts and luxurious living. Doth the Queen of Sheba, and Cleopatra were women of 'great wealth. . j • . ■ Except for. the dna-k ages, thcio dobs -apt seem to have been a period iu history, where there was not some colossal wealth or some fabulous moneyed i family towering over the rest of ■ the,world/ , , ■ ; ; Evdn- as early as the fourteenth century we hear of /very rich men in England,’like .William de la Pole and Dick Whittington. /•'

De la Pole lent'his king the equivalent of £1,000,000 sterling on one occasion—-and never got' it. back. :