nd almost without ornament,
the furniture is simple, the stuffs coarse and devoid of variety. Not
one thing made today can we compare as to shape, durability, or beauty
with those of former ages. Why has this happened?"

He advanced a number of steps again, surrounded by torches.

"Here is a great number of things," said he, "which the Phoenicians
bring us from various regions. Some tens of kinds of incense, colored
glass, furniture, vessels, woven stuffs, chariots, ornaments, all these
come from Asia and are bought by us.

"Do ye understand now, worthy fathers, why the Phoenicians tear away
grain, fruit, and cattle from the scribes and the pharaoh? In pay for
those foreign goods which have destroyed our artisans as locusts
destroy vegetation.

"Among things obtained through Phoenicians for his holiness, the
nomarchs, and the scribes, gold has the first place.

"This kind of commerce is the most accurate picture of calamities
inflicted on Egypt by Asia.

"When a man borrows gold to the amount of one talent, he is obliged in
three years to return two talents. But most frequently the Phoenicians,
under pretext of decreasing trouble for the debtor, assure payment in
their own way: that is, debtors for each talent borrowed give them as
tenants for three years two measures of land and thirty-two people.

"See there, worthy fathers," said he, pointing to a part of the court
which was better lighted. "That square of land one hundred and ten
yards in length and as wide signifies two measures; the men, women, and
children of that crowd mean eight families. All that together: people
and land pass for three years into dreadful captivity. During that time
their owner, the pharaoh or a nomarch, has no profit at all from them;
at the end of that term he receives the land back exhausted, and of the
people, twenty in number at the very highest, the rest have died under
torture!"

Those present shuddered with horror.

"I have said that the Phoenician takes two measures of land and thirty-
two people for three years in exchange for one talent. See what a space
of laud and what a crowd of people; look now at my hand.

"This piece of gold which I grasp here, this lump, less than a hen's
egg in size, is a talent.

"Can you estimate the complete insignificance of the Phoenicians in
this commerce? This small lump of gold has no real value: it is yellow,
it is heavy, a man cannot eat it, and that is the end of the matter. A
man d