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AURUM.
97
they
might have coasted along as far as the Guinea coast. No further mention
is to be found of gold from Africa; and, still more extraordinary, he
does not allude to the very extensive workings carried on in his days
in Egypt. The first may be explained easily: the Carthaginians kept all
their gold at home, they had no metallic currency (until a much later
period), and their exports were entirely manufactures, which in all
their commerce they bartered against the precious metals.
As
for India, whence the Persian kings derived a vast amount of gold as
tribute, he had obtained no real information. The Persians told a story
of the northernmost Indians, next to the Bactrians, who went out into
the sandy Desert on camels to steal the gold-dust that was scraped up
by enormous ants as big as foxes. But this metal was procured from
Thibet by caravans, for India itself has no gold-mines, as the Greeks
under Alexander found to their inexpressible disappointment. India
drained the Roman empire of gold in return for its gems, spices, and
silk, as it, with China, does Europe at the present day of its silver.
The Periplus of the Bed Sea gives an exact notion of the Roman trade
with that country ; the Indian exports were then precisely the same as
they were a century ago, or before the cotton manufacture was
established in Europe. The Romans paid for all this in ready money,
having no commodities except amber, coral, copper, and lead, to
exchange for these Indian productions.2
Yet,
from whatever sources derived, the quantity of gold accumulated by the
princes of Asia Minor was absolutely incredible. The gold-washings of
the Pactolus alone furnished the gifts sent by Croesus to Delphi ; seen
by Herodotus himself, and of which he has recorded the weight (i. 50).
There were 117 oblong ingots (ήμπτλίνθια), each 18 inches long
by 9 wide and 3 thick. Of these four were of refined gold, weighing
each 1-1/2 talent (90 lbs.) : all the others of "pale gold," i.e. electrum,
and weighing each 2 talents (120 lbs.) ; a distinction proving clearly
the difficulty then experienced in separating the native alloy from the
metal.
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