by David Astle
The agents of the Babylonian Money Power as it existed previous to the extensive growth of coined money as a base for that circulation, seen or abstract, which drove the trade and industry of the Greek industrial revolution, would themselves have promoted and encouraged the establishment of the temple nucleus to the city state. It was the form of government they understood best and whose essential powers they knew, from experience now grown ancient, how to control and subvert if necessary. Just as the similar secret money creative force heads directly for the seat of government itself in this day and age, and once it becomes fully lodged and acknowledged, in the same way as with the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694 and the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States in 1913, two instances with which we are most familiar, it penetrates right into the heart of the treasury,[39] so it was in that day. In the little cities of early Greek industrial revolution, perhaps no less sly amongst this sturdy people, but clearly discernible it was.
As amongst the original aristocracy of Greece owing its origin to those heroic days of the Homeric Sagas, would be little enough sympathy for the smooth subtleties of those newcomers originating from the counting houses of the Phoenician, Aramean, or Babylonian Cities, it would not be to the natural political leaders that these newcomers would address themselves in the first place, but to the priesthood, those who controlled shrine and temple, the advisors and guides to such rulers. Just as in today such priesthood is too often composed of men of little understanding of the realities of financial life, and who will lend themselves almost eagerly to any power that may approach them with sufficient front to convince them that they are being offered more than the god they represent is already possessed of, so it was in that day. This village priesthood, conducting the simple rites such as may have been during the period known as the dark ages, and before the advent of the city states of historical record, when was breathed into their ears the possibilities of magnificent temples such as were to be found in Egypt, and the extent of the control they would exercise through the oracles, whose wisdom would be spread by fame across the whole world, would easily be gained.
Thus the cities that rose out of the industrial awakening of Greece had all the appurtenances of the sacred city state of more ancient days. However, just as sacred kingship existing as the projection of the guiding will of the Almighty on to this earth, too often during the last three hundred years has become little more than a front giving legality to such money as circulates bearing as it does, the profile of the ruler who so often has been unwitting co-conspirator, if only as essential instrument, with that money power, totally international in character, which has nowadays largely replaced kingly power as the true ruler, so it was that the temple that should owe fealty to the gods alone, became a front for the international money creative force of that day and age; connected closely with the trade in precious metals and slaves as it must have been.
The temple of the Sumerian city state had been palace, temple, warehouse, government offices and central bank in one, and its servants[40] had administered it in these capacities certainly until the end of what is known as the Dynastic period (in the case of the city of Ur), and with declining strength for long afterwards; and the king of the city state had been sufficiently as god on earth, that, as previously has been described, there were those of his wives and concubines and officials who gladly went down to the grave with him.[41]
Thus, as the distant heir, in some degree, to this temple of ancient days, the temple of the Greek city state in the 1st Millennium
B.C. was still a place looked up to as the abode of the gods, and wherein the sacred rites were conducted; even if that economic power, by which, as the expression of the benevolent will of the god, it had controlled the total existence of men, and their comings and goings, was now exercised by an external and indifferent force, alien to Greece in thought and character, and with whom it connived against its own adherents.
In the same way the priesthood or laymen that promote, wittingly or unwittingly, the elements of decay penetrating the church of today, connive blindly or otherwise with those whose stated and clear plan has never been other than the disintegration of this selfsame church, and who have always had in mind no more than its ultimate destruction.
In a latter period it is true, but still within the first millennium B.C., the situation at the Temple of Apollo at Delos, and of which some proof exists, clearly illustrates this condition of the temple: still as controller of the mysteries, and the recipient of the bounty of devoted souls, but no longer the centre and control point of the god owned state. It had become merely a front for the economic purposes of a secret fraternity whose concern was money changing, silver bullion, the grain trade, and the slave trade. These persons had conducted their business in the shade of the temple courtyards from ancient days as, and if they could, in order that the power or mystery as locally was held in awe, might give sanctity to their activities which so often were exercised against the well being of the people who sheltered them. Such activities were frequently concerned with movements of bullion, the factor most of all giving rise to instability of prices, and movements of labour which then was slaves, hardly less a factor in such instability of prices, and therefore so necessary to the full exploitation of a given people.
The island of Delos, although virtually infertile and without special advantages such as natural harbours of any particular excellence, due to the contributions and gifts of the pilgrims visiting the Temple of Apollo, and the deposits of the cities, trapezitae and leading citizens, in precious metals and money, for such were esteemed to be safe in the Temple of the God, became very rich; a centre of trade and banking, and above all, a centre for the area slave trade from which almost none were safe.[42]
Of the commercial activities of the great sanctuaries, Oskar Seffert, the German antiquarian of the last century had to say, (A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, p. 91.):
“We hear in isolated cases of State Banks, but this business was carried on in the vast majority of cases, by the Great Sanctuaries, such as those of Delphi, Delos, Ephesus, and Samos, which were much used as banks for loans and deposits both by individuals and governments.”
In other words, therefore, the great sanctuary functioned very much the same way, from the economic standpoint, as the central bank in this day. The agents of International Money Power, as used by the priesthood of the Temple of Apollo to take care of the fiscal or financial dealings of the temple, and to whom undoubtedly was farmed out the credit of the temple, must have fully understood that the priesthood had betrayed their high calling, and thereby had betrayed those devoted souls who continued to believe the sole concern of the temple was, as formerly, for their spiritual guidance and that they should live good, virtuous and pious lives.
These agents would have lurked as only faintly discernible shadows behind the temple facade, although they instigated much of what came to pass in those days, if themselves so little seen. Of first concern to them would have been the reputation of their masters, the priesthood, for piety, probity, and godliness, in so far as appearance went. For by maintaining the position of the priesthood, they maintained themselves and their secret power; yet for whatever they brought about, especially if of evil, it may safely be assumed, a nevertheless inviolate priesthood would be held responsible.
Hence the people never questioned the existence of the temple but as the place where the will of the god was exercised through his servants. That it had come to function more as instrument in the capacity of sanctifying front for an international power concerned largely with money creation and the control of the slave trade, itself mainly of criminal antecedents, was something they never came to fully understand; nor that this whole thing of prayer, worship, and devotion was dangerously near to becoming a cruel hoax manipulated by a handful of aliens, who looked at them and their fervour and belief with dead eyes. No more in this day do those who toil on through the few years of their lives realize t
hat the governments that they so naively believe are theirs, are but a wavering shadow. The absolute reality of sovereign power only obtainable through total control over monetary creation and emission and cancellation, is not theirs. They but function as standards by which international money creative forces create the worlds money in a given area; places wherein exponents of the “Law” and talkative and by no means wise or learned men foregather to discuss road minding etc. and too often little things that occupy them, but matter not too much; never looking too closely at the direction from which they came, nor toward that direction in which they go; nor, above all, towards the place of the hand that feeds them.
Therefore this economic power apparently centering in the Temple of Apollo would not only derive from those loans in precious metals that it was able to grant, but also from the fact that those very secret fraternities understanding fully the principles of Ledger Credit Page Entry Money, operated under its patronage. There can be no doubt that the principles of monetary inflation, or, better put, abstract money creation, were well understood to the trapezitae or professional bankers to whom the Temple at Delos apparently delegated these functions;[43] and equally well known was how easily merchants could be trained to make payments by cheque drawn on account consisting of supposed deposits with a recognized banker either by signed and witnessed document, by signed document, even by no more than verbal instructions. Thus, provided the payee also had account at Delos or agency thereof, no transfer of actual silver need have been involved, and what is now euphemistically described as the fractional reserve system, (a swindle indurated in a system!) was operated. The enormous volume of exchanges a business that could be carried on without the movement of one drachma of silver, and consequently the monopolization of trade and industry and subsequent control over the whole world and its affairs that could be brought about at literally no real cost, provided those dealing in money changing and financial matters maintained close solidarity, was known to the bankers.
The tremendous entre-pôt trade of Delos, especially in slaves,[44] could not derive from anything else other than the acceptance of the “Credit” of the Temple from the hands of these aliens. These men would be skilled money changers bred and trained in the ancient financial sophistication of the cities of Babylonia, Aram, a Phoenicia, etc. They would be fully conversant with the possibilities inherent in such ledger credit page entry money, and whose successful functioning as an abstract inflation of the number of units of silver they claimed to control, depended on secrecy, and solidarity amongst themselves, and above all, on the patronage of the corrupted temples.
Professor Rostovtsev relates at length the commercial dealings of Apollonius, manager of the economic affairs of the Ptolemic Pharaoh, Philadelphus.[45] If the true name of Apollonius or others of that necessarily interlocked money power was known, and substituted for that of Antigonus and Demetrius and Soter and, indeed of Philadelphus and all those rulers that succeeded Alexander, then the glass through which this tale is read, showing but dark and inscrutable figures incomprehensibly moving on the screen of time, becomes clear and meaningful. For instance it is unthinkable that those soldiers who were the successors to Alexander, probably by no means as instructed as their commander, should have understood the undercurrents that still supported enthroned kings, and upheld them before the gaze of those that yearned towards them as to the Lord’s anointed.
When Antigonus Gonatus took over the patronage formerly extended by the Ptolemies to Delos, he made it an entre-pôt centre for the Northern Aegean trade in those materials so necessary in the building of ships; and more significantly again for silver; no doubt from the mines of Thrace and beyond.
This flow of silver to Delos from the North is of equal interest to the rest of the entre-pôt trade. It would have contributed to the augmentation of the temple reserves of silver that would have enabled Delos to partially replace Athens during the 3rd Century B.C. as the new centre from which international money power came to control the finances of the Eastern Mediterranean as formerly, in the days of the Athenian Empire; and therefore above all, that grain trade so essential to Athens[46] and mainland Greece. A document mentioned by Professor M. Rostovtsev refers to a purchase of grain in Delos by a Sitones of Histicaea, a subject city of Macedonia in which he observes that the purchase was made out of money advanced by a Rhodian banker. This particular case might suggest that the banking of Rhodes was interlocked with that of Delos and that those silver reserves of the Temple of Apollo functioned also as reserve to Rhodian banking. Delos, because of its sanctity would constitute a much safer store house for precious metal hoards than ever Rhodes might be.
Previous references to banking in the Grecian centres and sanctuaries as being conducted by aliens,[47] are also verified by Professor M. Rostovtsev.[48] The question therefore arises “What aliens?” Would they be members of the same fraternity as the Aramean, Apollonius above mentioned, manager for the economic affairs for Ptolemy Philadelphus; men who were standing almost above and beyond mankind in their manipulation of powers that not so long previously had been reserved solely to the gods and which had been exercised only by that dedicated priesthood surrounding the king, son of god, on earth? Such power being lost to kings forever when in the first place they permitted the institution of accounting to a silver standard in ancient times in the Lands of Sumer and Akkad.
The latter days of Delos and the Temple of Apollo when 10,000 slaves were shipped abroad in one day alone,[49] would certainly suggest the existence at Delos as controllers of its economic affairs, a class of persons internationally minded, and utterly callous to the sufferings of the mixture of broken races that passed before it the way to the slave stockades. Although slavery previous to the 4th century B.C. had been more in the nature of a benign custom similar to the custom of the bonded servant or apprentice of the 18th and 19th Centuries in Northern Europe, after the Macedonian conquests it became a custom in no way so benign,[50] and herding all kinds of persons formerly free, day in and day out, on to the ships of the day, could not have been accomplished but with whip and chain and families being torn apart without compunction or compassion, and little children defenseless against the abuse of monsters.
While the facts of the Temple of Apollo at Delos are relatively clear, supposition of the existence of the Temple of Athene, at Athens as being under the secret control of the bankers, while not being so clear, is logical.
The reserve of 6000 talents of coined silver supposed to have been stored in the Acropolis at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War[51] would certainly seem to indicate that the Temple loaned itself to that major activity of so-called bankers, the creation of abstract money, and shielded them in their very carefully guarded secret that most money circulating as between Athenian merchants and those with whom they did business within, or without the Athenian Empire, was that which was created as by ledger credit page entry. The silver reserve would have been the banker’s window dressing and would have served to take care of smaller day to day expenses and payments to foreign states where no other form of payment was possible or acceptable.
The Peloponnesian War ended no more than a little over a hundred years before the time of Alexander. According to A. Andreades in his essay on the war finances of Alexander the Great, total expenditures per annum of Alexander at the time of the crossing of the Hellespont were 5000 - 7000 talents[52]. This was the expenses of an army far from home, and to which, until the Battle of Issus and the certainty of Macedonian total victory, little enough credit would have been available, and most of the disbursements of which army would have been in solid metal. Of such metal, fortunately for the Macedonian Royal House, the mines of Phillipi had certainly made substantial contribution.
It is therefore out of the question to consider whether 6000 talents of silver were adequate for the total finances of the Peloponnesian War over ten years, so far as Athens was concerned. If all disbursements to traders etc. had been in silver, it is doubtful if such so-called
reserve could have lasted six months.
This silver was merely the foundation of that illusion which was no doubt spread across the Athenian Empire, that those baked clay facsimiles of Greek coinages which circulated so well between merchants and governments, were redeemable in silver coin; just as for the last three hundred years in the British Empire all the Queen’s loyal subjects have believed that every bank note in circulation was redeemable in gold!
On the subject of such fiduciary currencies in ancient times, particularly the Athenian, François Lenormant, eminent 19th Century Numismatist wrote:[53]
“Cedrenus claims that the Romans had wooden money in very ancient times. But this tradition can probably be relegated to the domain of fables with the Roman money of clay of which Suidas writes. However it could be that this last information is connected with several types of assignat briefly used at the time and which could not have been emitted by public authority. Clay moulds of silver and gold currencies of various countries, principally belonging to the period extending from the middle of the 5th Century B.C., and among others, of the staters of Cyzique, are frequently found at Athens.
The learned Sicilian Numismatist M. Antonio Salinas during his stay in Greece, collected a large number of these monuments, either as originals or moulds, or drawings. The purpose of this special class of objects that are of course connected with numismatics, is very obscure. But it can be conjectured that such pseudo-currencies of baked clay moulded from existing types (of money) had a fiduciary circulation of quite a private character, however, similar to that of the credit notes whose emission is authorized in certain countries by particular institutions.”