What an ambitious, high-spirited people was this, to collect and keep in their treasury, with a view to conquests, a sum which it was every day in the power of the citizens, by a single vote, to distribute among themselves, and which would go near to triple the riches of every individual; for we must observe that the numbers and private riches of the Athenians are said by ancient writers to have been no greater at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War than at the beginning of the Macedonian.
Money was little more plentiful in Greece during the age of Philip and Perseus than in England during that of Harry VII., yet these two monarchs in thirty years {p64} collected from the small kingdom of Macedon a much larger treasure than that of the English monarch. Paulus Æmilius brought to Rome about £1,700,000 sterling—Pliny says £2,400,000—and that was but a part of the Macedonian treasure; the rest was dissipated by the resistance and flight of Perseus.
We may learn from Stanyan that the Canton of Berne had £300,000 lent at interest, and had above six times as much in their treasury. Here, then, is a sum hoarded of £1,800,000 sterling, which is