The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

With regard to the origin of silver in antiquity, we must remark that silver was far more seldom found than gold, and that a great deal of that mentioned by the ancients was so mixed with gold that only an eighth part was silver. The Biblical books, although referring to several places where gold was found, only mention silver coming from Tarshish, or Turditania, and that also brought to Canaan by the trade with Ophir.

In Africa, from whence Western Asia procured her great quantities of gold, the ancients found no silver. In the whole of Western Asia, the seat of the Semitic races, there was no silver, and in Asia Minor there was only a small quantity procured from the mines; and these are the only silver mines mentioned in Asia in antiquity, beyond the unimportant ones of Canaan and northern India. Moreover, in Europe, with the exception of the silver country of Turditania, silver was found only in very few places and in very small quantities.

Cyprus had some silver and gold mines, but it is very doubtful whether it was also to be found in Crete; and albeit unimportant, there were also gold and silver mines in Siphnus. Greece and the neighbouring countries were very poor in silver until the Persian war, the places where it was to be found, like the mines in Attica and probably the silver mines of Epirus and Macedonia, being either not known, or being worked by the Phœnicians; and it was the same with the mines of Thasos and Thrace, which were more famous for their gold than their silver. And beyond these places, if we except the Phœnician commercial district of northern Europe, mention was only made of the silver of Sardinia and Gaul, where the metal was only a late discovery, and of Britain.

Under these circumstances, the Biblical records which tell of Western Asia’s treasures of silver coming from the Phœnician colony of Tarshish are of great value to the history of ancient commerce. The Euphrates is also mentioned in these records, and it is moreover shown that being the centre of the commerce of antiquity, it was the depot for the metals found in the western countries, and as the Phœnicians monopolised the trade with Turditania for nearly a thousand years, they brought the silver to the market of Asia.

The enormous amount of silver possessed by Western Asia even in remote times, shows the great amount circulated by Phœnicia, as it was almost exclusively obtained by trade with that country.

Although silver was more difficult to obtain than gold, and was mostly first secured with gold in small quantities, it was used more than gold. The Greeks generally reckoned that gold was worth the tenth part of silver, and in Biblical books, in the seventh century B.C., there are signs of a similar comparison; but in more remote times silver must have ranked lower than gold, at least in Western Asia.

According to the Mosaic books, of the silver and golden gifts which the twelve chiefs made to the sanctuary, the silver gifts were worth twenty times as much as the golden, and it is therefore presumable, as the ancients were accurate in their statements about hieratic matters, that the old valuation of gold and silver was still then in vogue. As, moreover, in more ancient times, a great deal of silver and a comparatively small amount of gold was imported into Palestine, as gold was used only for ornaments, and not as money, the above valuation is not so astonishing.

We hear in Solomon’s days of plenty of silver, that the vessels of his house were made of pure gold, for silver was “nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon” (1 Kings x. 21), or that he “made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones” (1 Kings x. 27). These are evidently hyperbolical expressions, but they would hardly have been used if a certain change had not taken place in its valuation.

However it may be, an extraordinary amount of silver found its way into Western Asia at a very early period; and the farther one goes back in the history of Phœnicia and its vicinity, the greater the wealth of these countries in precious metals is seen to be; and hence the explanation of the part played there by gold and silver since the seventh century.

The great wealth in gold and silver in Western Asia is shown in the accounts given of the treasures which fell into the hands of the conquering Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, and the Hebrews in the times of David and Solomon. These treasures did not come from mines, at least we know of none in Western Asia, but they were gained partly from the conquered countries as tributes and booty, and partly from trade which was mainly directed to the capitals of the conquering kingdoms. The record of the wealth of the Assyrian kings far exceeds the almost fabulous accounts of the amount of silver found in Persia by the Macedonian conqueror.

THE SLAVE TRADE OF PHŒNICIA