A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

278 Alexander's Empire
I
abundance of rich and costly furniture and ornaments of
all sorts. In this place were looted here and there vast
quantities of silver, and no less of gold, great numbers of
rich garments, some of finest purple, others embroidered
with gold, all which became the prizes of the victors: and
thus the great seat-royal of
the Persians, once famous all
the world over, was now exposed to scorn and contempt,
and rifled from top to bottom. For though the Macedonians
spent days and days in the looting, yet their
covetousness was insatiable, still thirsting after more.
And they were so eager in plundering that they fought one
with another with drawn swords, and many who were
conceived to have got a greater share than the rest, were
killed in the quarrel. Some things that were of extraordinary
value they divided with their swords, and each
took a share; others in rage cut off the hands of such as
laid hold of a thing that was in dispute. ... So that in
proportion as Persepolis excelled all the other cities in
glory and worldly felicity,
misery and calamity.
such was the measure of her
The Then Alexander seized upon all the treasures in the
treasures
citadel, a vast quantity of gold and silver of the public
Diod. xvii.71.
revenues that had been there collected and laid up from
the time of Cyrus, the first king of Persia, to that day.
For there was found a hundred and twenty thousand
talents, reckoning the gold after the rate of the silver.
Part of this treasure he took for the use of the war, and
ordered another part of it to be treasured up at Susa.
this end he ordered that a multitude of mules both for
draught and carriage, and three thousand camels with
pack-saddles, should be brought out of Babylon, Mesopotamia,
and Susa; and with these he conveyed all the treasure
to the several places he had appointed.
To
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