The Babylonian Woe

by David Astle

  With the diffusion of this money, at once a number of vices were banished from Lacedaemon for who would rob another of such coin? Who would unjustly detain or take by force or accept as a bribe, a thing which was not easy to hide or a credit to have, or indeed of any use to cut in pieces. For when it was red-hot they quenched it in vinegar, and by that means spoilt it and made it almost incapable of being worked.

  In the next place he declared an outlawry of all superfluous arts; but here he might have spared his proclamation; for they of themselves would have gone after the gold and silver, the money which remained being not so proper payment for curious work, for being iron it was scarcely portable, neither if they should take the means to export it, would it pass among the other Greeks who ridiculed it. So now there was no means of purchasing foreign goods and small wares, no itinerate fortune teller, no harlot monger, or gold or silver smith, engraver or jeweller set foot in a country which had no money; so that luxury deprived little by little of that which fed and fomented it, wasted to nothing, and died away of itself. For the rich had no advantage here over the poor as their wealth and abundance had no road to come abroad by, but were shut up at home doing nothing.”[356]

  Plutarch, of course, lived in a city and in an age when all wealth was assessed in terms of precious metals by weight. Needless to say, in order to have the cooperation of the real ruler, local money creative power, towards the publication of his works, he wisely followed that trend which undoubtedly had been instigated in Athens of making a mockery of Spartan customs, a trend which is still followed to this day by many so called scholars. Sparta, early in the Millennium had come to understand the real significance of precious metal money, as being part of an international confidence game. Sparta also realized the destructive forces inherent in the activities of its controllers and the foreign luxury traders they encouraged and financed in order to debilitate the people, and so make absolute their own secret hegemony, such as destroyed all racial pride in that people on whom they were battening, and thus destroying their will to resist through creating obsession with pleasure. The evidence is in the findings of the British School at Athens from their excavations at the site of the city of Sparta:

  “The excavations of the British School at Athens at the site of the city of Sparta reveal a flourishing state of the arts and manufactures in Laconia carried on, if not wholly by Laconian workmen themselves, at least by foreign artists who were welcome and encouraged to ply their crafts without any of the dark suspicion of strangers that was so marked in latter times.”[357]

  The so-called Spartan way of life derived from the necessity of the Spartans to always be prepared for total war from abroad, as their final rejection of international money power made certain would come, and to be always prepared for war from within; i.e., insurrection; an equal certainty deriving from the same causes.

  The first Messenian War (736-716 B.C.) was entered into by King Theopompus of Sparta for the usual reasons for any war in a state indicated by archaeological findings as being under the thumb of international money power: instigation by that money power in favour of its arms industry and its other long range purposes. The long drawn out character of the war indicated that the Messenians had equal access to international arms industry with Sparta. Armies are not raised and maintained in long drawn out wars without finances acceptable in international trade and ready access to the best of weapons and equipment; and it is clear the Messenians were not short of such. This war served that purpose most desirable to money power of reducing the power of kings: “The first and second Messenian wars were both followed by constitutional crises. The first settlement was a victory of the Spartan peers over the kings and a curbing of royal prerogatives and powers.”[358] Such would have been typical of the progress of international money power in its usual insidious takeover of any state or civilization. “The crisis after the second Messenian war was at least within the ranks of the Spartans themselves, a democratic one, if that very dubious word can be used.”[359] The long drawn out character of the second Messenian War indicated the same underlying factor of the original war of conquest: international money-power extending its favours to both sides, to the insurgents and to Sparta. The final edicts of Lycurgus as a result of the constitutional crisis that followed the second Messenian war, certainly indicate he was aware of the loss of sovereignty that came to any state that based its money system on the product of the international bullion brokers, and which meant dependence on their good graces; the more especially if such state had no mines of its own.

  The Second Messenian war which was doubtless to have established total “Democracy,” that is, total rule of the international banking fraternity, failed so far as such purpose was concerned. Lycurgus’s answer to a man who insisted he create a democracy in the state was “First create a democracy in your own house.” Certainly an apt answer!

  The complaint of Theognis, admirer of Sparta, visitor from Megara, whos e political aim was directed towards the prevention of the recurrence of a Tyranny at Megara, should not be forgotten, and bore light on the conditions at Sparta, as well, and that gave rise to Lycurgus:

  “Tradesmen reign supreme, the bad lord it over their betters, This is the lesson that all must thoroughly master.”[360]

  Of the reforms of Lycurgus, their cause, and those forces they were directed against, there is no doubt whatsoever, and verification through the findings of archaeology such as the work of Dr. Blakeway in Laconia reestablishes the time as being, as remarked above, after the second Messenian war, namely between 600 B.C. and 550 B.C.

  “He has demonstrated from archaeological evidence that between 600 B.C. and 550 B.C., foreign imports into Sparta practically ceased. Corinthian pottery which had been common in Sparta in the early or Proto-Corinthian period is exceedingly rare after c.600 B.C. Ivory, amber, Egyptian scarabs, and Phoenician goods likewise cease before 550 B.C. and the same is true of gold and silver jewellery.”[361]

  There is no doubt that early in the sixth century B.C., the Spartans totally excluded the international money market, such as controlled the rest of Greece through silver and gold money, and the banker’s practices relating thereto. They also excluded foreign trade as being equally destructive of the order of life they wished to preserve.

  The notion created by Plutarch of that national currency of iron as being something ridiculous and requiring also an ox-cart may be dismissed as part of the steady stream of propaganda no doubt being created in Athens against everything of ancient days, particularly the customs special to Sparta. If it is true that the pelanors were of such weight as ruled out their being readily passed from hand to hand, then it may reasonably be assumed that they denoted wealth in much the same manner as the stone rings of Uap and the ancient Indus Valley civilization;[362] more in the nature of a reserve, the circulating money being the leather notes referred to by Suidas as circulating in Lacedaemon, just as the circulating money of Uap was shell strings, similar to Tekaroro of the Gilbert Islands.[363] It may equally have been a system whose origins were lost in remote ages; perhaps bearing relationship to that system existing in Europe during the 4th Millennium B.C.,[364] when it is clear that the spondylus shell had greater significance than that ascribed to it as “Prestige Possession,” and was part of a world wide use of shells as money.

  Sparta was indeed fortunate to possess considerable reserves of iron ore, the principal deposits being at the Malean Cape and the Taenarian Promontory.[365] Thus, both for her money and for her arms, she was therefore independent, and needed no assistance from abroad. The Laws of Lycurgus excluding international money and trade, directly continued the fomentation of that warlike spirit and racial and national pride bred in the Spartans out of the trials of the long drawn out Messenian wars; and which brought them in as saviours at Thermopylae, and, indeed, of Carthage at the end of the first Punic War (255 B.C.) when the army of Regulus encamped before the city was destroyed by Xantippus the Spartan.

  The very fact that t
he power of the kings had been undermined by the first Messenian War, although their position as absolute leaders of the people in war still existed, became a blessing in disguise. History has shown that the point to which international money power immediately gravitates when penetrating any people living in natural order, is the top, the king himself, either directly, or through the priesthood. Given his sanction and connivance in respect to their schemes, then peoples whose very souls have leaned towards the king as to the Lord’s anointed, are easily subdued, and their minds filled with arithmetical calculations and obsession with their animal needs, instead of that great glory of a oneness with the Deity, a oneness with the harmony of the universe, and their being lords of their own world with dominion over all other life.

  One of the first steps of such money power towards total assumption of rule has been the eradication of kings and kingly power. Even though a king might be lead into connivance with the banker’s schemes, through lack of understanding, he always could still awaken and discover his mistake, and realizing the sword was still in his hand, take measures to regain his prerogative. Therefore he had to be disposed of, or reduced to paid and willing servant.

  In Sparta there seems to have been another obstacle to the promoters of that “Phony” democracy advocated by international money power, namely the Ephorate whose existence was undoubtedly linked to that national money power of Sparta as instituted, or reinstituted under the protection of Lycurgus. Of the Ephors it may be said their main objectives were: “First the maintenance of home defence and limiting of Spartan dominion to Messenia and Laconia (i.e. no imperial entanglements).[366] Second, the fostering of a steady policy which lead to intervention in the struggle at Athens with the Peisistratids, and the expulsion of the family; third an unrelenting hostility to the pretensions of royal power in the state.” “The Ephorate was a profoundly democratic institution that feared and fought against tyranny both within and without the borders of Lacedaemon.”[367]

  Accepting the tyrant as front man of those alien agents of international money power, the trapezitae, in which category the Peisistratids certainly fell, then the meaning of the policies of the Ephorate becomes clear; with the limiting of Spartan dominion to Messenia and Laconia, was the establishment of an area from which Spartans could derive total economic freedom, sufficient to maintain themselves, and that which above all maintained their way of life and its source, their national monetary system.

  The intervention at Athens and the total opposition to the Peisistratids was obvious policy in view of the unrelenting pressure of Athenian money power as a branch of International Money Power, against Sparta, city that had made mockery of the power of the counting houses of the world financial centres, and had set up example in the world which would become inspiration to others.

  The hostility to kingly power by the Ephorate, would be guided by what they doubtless saw was the need, if their national life was to be maintained, of making sure that kings in no way had the power to surrender themselves, and the people they represented, to the blandishments of international money power, whose opportunity, alas! has always been a weak and ill-instructed king.

  However the remark of Archidamos, King of Sparta at the commencement of the “Great” Peloponnesian war reveals, even at that day, 428 B.C. how the corruptive forces outpouring from Babylonia, with its immediate agents, had certainly reentered Sparta to some degree.

  “And war is not so much a matter of armaments as of the money that makes armaments effective.”[368]

  In his speech to his own people Archidamos also warns them of the 6000 talents war chest supposedly held by the Athenians in the Acropolis. Both of these statements show no understanding of that in which a king should above all be instructed, National Monetary Emission, and prove how right were the Ephors in the controls with which they surrounded kingship. Archidamos privately was close friend of Pericles, scion of the Alkmeonidae, whose destiny, Greek history shows, to have always been closely linked to that of international money power.

  During the period when the national currency of Sparta maintained its integrity, it might be safe to say that the Spartan, in so far as it is possible for true freedom to exist, was a free man. Indeed the helots were more than likely more free by a long way than are the labouring classes of this day; and certainly more free than those classes of the semi-mass production lines of the other Greek Cities, whose monetary systems were almost all, whether fiduciary and of state issue or not, at the mercy of the bankers, and therefore the manipulators of the value of bullion and slaves, wherever it was they maintained their centre; generally assumed to be Babylonia and its outposts, Lydia, and Naucratis in the Nile Delta, and Phoenicia, and Athens, and Cyzicus and Colchis and many other cities in key positions to trade with the world beyond.

  A monetary system, simple, inviting neither peddlers of luxury, panders or pornographers to make mockery of the lives of the people, issued and regulated by a benevolent state, and undoubtedly with its units paid into circulation with care and attention to the result on the national well-being and strength, bred a sturdy independent people completely contemptuous of the gold madness raging elsewhere. They were an example by which other great peoples came to profit, outstandingly the Romans. They lived with a feeling of great superiority to the Athenians, who, while having a plentiful currency, except during the periods of exhaustion of the Laureion silver mines, were exposed to all the evils of control over their political life by alien money power through the trapezitae.

  History gives much information about the means whereby money was collected and raised and spent, but nothing as to those shadowy figures who institute its units in the first place, and, as in the case of the banker’s “democracies,” inject them into the circulation.

  As to when international money power reentered Sparta, there is little enough evidence. But the outlook of King Archidamos suggested it had made quite some progress by the date of the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, and it may be safely said that to win that war, out of which could come nothing but gain to international money power, Sparta had to make almost total concession. The final victory over Athens and her Empire, which ended the war, achieved the purposes of the international bullion and slave traders as surely as final defeat would so have done. As it will be remembered, the relaxation and luxury that inundated Rome after the second Punic war, as a result of the concessions that had been made to international bullion and slave traders in order to be able to re-arm after Cannae, and ultimately drive Hannibal out of Italy, and defeat him in his own territory, within 25 years dragged the Romans down[369] to a debauched money mad mob, though still mighty through the employment at arms of the defeated peoples.

  Similarly, after the Peloponnesian War, like causes had done the same for Sparta, and it was but 25 years later, in 371 B.C., the Spartan Phalanx, softened to the core, crumbled into bloody ruin at Leuctra, to Epaminondas the Theban and never again recovered the élan that had made it the victor of a hundred battles, for the Spartans now, more than any, were consumed by the corrupting diseases of money madness and its attendant liberalism.

  That by 360 B.C., the ancient money system that had been the factor behind the morale of the Spartan of Thermopylae was little more than a memory, is revealed by the following quotation taken from Alexander Del Mar:

  “The crime of Gylipus, B.C. 360 and the decree offered upon its exposure, viz. ‘That no coin of gold or silver be admitted into Sparta, but that they should use the money that had formerly obtained,’ shows that as this decay of the state and weakening of credit went on, gold or silver coins, at or near their bullion value, gradually crept into circulation as money. The failure of the decree to pass is conclusive that the iron numerical system was no longer practicable.”[370]

  In other words, the damage to that which had been Sparta and its people done by the ruler who first of all turned a blind eye to dealings in the precious metals, the regrowth of international trade, and no doubt the holding of deposits in
Athenian Banks, and who failed to deal with ferocity with those who interfered with the pelanors either by counterfeiting or speculation, was irreparable. It seemed this time the clock could not be turned back.

  Thus while Sparta finally collapsed before the unremitting pressure of the Athenian, or better put, the international money market, seeming to yield its ancient strength and the sources of its independence, the Athens that carried on, as well, partly for reasons as elsewhere given, was but a shadow of itself with the approach of the exhaustion of the mines, and thence the failure of the base of its money power and the “confidence” essential to its maintenance. Moreover, still in the hands of the bankers as a centre of trade for trade’s sake, Athens was become but a name. As with Rome by the time of the Civil Wars, its original people had disappeared into that mass of freed slaves, and immigrants from elsewhere, the “sojourners,” who were now a large part of the Athenian population, and for whose leaders Xenophon the journalist obviously fronted when he proposed that special taxes should be lifted from foreigners who at the same time were not to be required to do military service.[371] (Here it might be remarked that it is perhaps unfortunate that should still survive the writings of a paid propagandist, so similar to the writings of some of his brethren today, when so little remains of Greek literature relative to the total output.)

  Of Spartan money as reinstituted under the patronage of Lycurgus, Ernest Babelon, famous French Numismatist of the 19th Century, wrote:

  “A long time after the use of money had been spread throughout the Hellenic world, Sparta continued as through tradition, to make use of ingots of iron as a means of exchange. These bars were known under the description of (gâteau de pâtisserie).

  Each one weighed an Aeginetic Mina, and to carry only six of them, that is to say about 536 Kg., a wagon drawn by two oxen was required. This information supplied to us by Xenophon and Plutarch agrees with that from central Italy where cumbersome bars of bronze were carried in carts; ‘Aes Grave plaustris quidam convehentes,’ said Titus Vivius. All kinds of stories circulated on the subject of the famous Pelanors of Sparta that seem to have remained in use until the Persian Wars. It was said, for instance that the iron used in the manufacture of this money was unsuitable for any other purpose and was rendered brittle by an operation consisting of heating it until red-hot, then quenching it in vinegar. In the conservative capital of Laconia it appears that these ingots of iron were the sole money in use and all citizens were forbidden under penalty of death to possess any other money. When Epaminondas died he was so poor that nothing was found in his house in the way of wealth other than an old iron. At Thebes the native land of Epaminondas where money was known and struck at an early date, found in the residence of the hero could have no more than a superstitious character.”