The Babylonian Woe

by David Astle

  The greater part of the units of exchange as emitted by private money creative power are of no intrinsic value other, perhaps, than those denoted by precious metal symbols, and with which the confidence of peoples and rulers was gained. Therefore the cost of instituting that total control of any state so “captured” by private money creative power, i.e., the bankers, was virtually nil, since clearly such state financed its own lamentable condition!

  It is clear that each unit issued into circulation, of fraudulent origin or otherwise, reduced by an exact valuation, the worth of previous units as worked in the exchanges; transferring such loss of worth to the holder of the new unit. If later, with growth of industry deriving from the creation of such unit, all circulating units increased in worth, such increase in worth rarely caught up with the original decline in worth, or purchasing power of those previously existing units.

  The steady decline in worth or purchasing power, of the unit of exchange at any place and in any period of history, will be sufficient proof in itself of the existence of secret creation and manipulation of abstract units of exchange by a relatively invisible force. Only under most unusual circumstances would even a sharp rise in the number of precious metal units circulating, cause distinct and disturbing inflation of values, without an accompanying fraudulent, and secret expansion of the total number of working units, through issuance of false receipts against non-existing valuables or non-existing warehoused goods, or by creation of transferable ledger credit page entry money against assignment of “collateral”. Precious metal units in themselves soon wear out, disappear for purposes of speculation abroad, or are hoarded.

  Thus the creation and issuance of money constitutes free gift to the issuer when such issuer be private person. It automatically and immediately despoils he who thinks himself to have money or to be a person of worth. It is an indirect and hidden form of taxation no less than any other such indirect or hidden tax.[387]

  If, continuing to speak of ancient times, such units of money, fraudulent or otherwise, were accepted by the simple folk as money, and seemed to serve equally well as had served that lawful money of earlier times yet again, which had been an order on the treasury or warehouses of the god of the city, then indeed, such units were money to all intents and purposes of the immediate needs of exchange. The fact of their legal issuance as a loan at interest against goods and services as collateral pledges, placed in the hands of their creator and issuer the power of total discrimination, formerly recognized as being the sole and absolute prerogative of the god, through his servants the priest-kings of ancient times; those who were the carriers of the breath of Life Eternal from God to Man. As time went on, the fact of their creation, issue, acceptance, and effectiveness in the exchanges, once the people had resigned themselves to slow inflation of values, placed in the hand of this private creator of these originally fraudulent exchange units, All-Power!

  Whatever the material on which the units of exchange or their divisibles or multiples were recorded, the customer still thought in terms of silver, as even today most still think in terms of gold though none to speak of has circulated for thirty five years or so. So long as the ruler concurred in the first place in the conspiracy to denominate these exchange units as being as acceptable as those previously issued by the god and his people, and between whom the king had been the connecting link, then the power of preferment or rejection was soon in the hands of the banker as agent for what corresponded in that day to the international bankers of today totally in opposition to that natural order of life in which the unit of exchange represents the will of the benevolent god.

  Needless to say, this person would not extend his preferment to those who instinct told him might be able to come to understand the real truth of the emptiness of those shadowed vaults from which his hand reached forth. It might safely be assumed that discrimination would be exercised against those whose obliteration was included in the overall plans of those mystic, if not satanic figures that lurked in the inner sanctuaries of temple, mint, or counting house; in which secret places were formulated those policies that decided the promotion or otherwise of kings, tyrants, dictators, or political parties.

  The extraordinary wealth and power according to the standards of the day of this secretive, and apparently humble money power, is shown clearly by the following extract from Babelon:[388]

  “We know that the Greek bankers were money changers; all the more important financial transactions were negotiated through their agency. Their counters were the meeting place of businessman and the stock market. They controlled at the same time the sea-borne trade, and the affairs of the caravans, above all, in Asia Minor. The exploitation of mines was often in their hands. These guardians of treasure received the precious metal deposits belonging to private persons or traders, keeping open account for their clients, thus accumulating enormous amounts; they hoarded, they loaned to Princes as well as private individuals. Listen then to the story of Nicholas of Damascus more eloquent than any commentary:

  ‘Wishing to carry the war into Caria, Alyatte, King of Lydia (610-561 B.C.) gave the order to his commanders to bring him their contingents at Sardis, by a certain day. Amongst the generals chosen was Croesus, the oldest son of the King, at that time Governor of Adramyttium and of the plain of Thebes. Negligent and prodigal, ill regarded by his father on account of his dissipations, very desirous of being received back into his father’s good graces, and of confounding his calumniators, but not having the wherewithal to raise and hire mercenaries, the young Prince, in order to overcome his embarrassment, resolved to contract a loan. With this purpose in mind he sought out Sadyattes, the richest merchant of Lydia. This person, occupied with his ablutions, firstly let Croesus wait impatiently at his door. Then he agreed to receive him, but this was only to refuse him money; ‘If I must lend to all the sons of Alyattes,’ he cried, ‘there will not be enough!’

  Rebuffed, Croesus proceeded to Ephesus. There, an Ionian friend, Pamphaes, learning the reason of his visit, obtained a sum of a thousand gold staters from his father, Theocharides, who was possessed of considerable fortune, and which he hastened to bring to the necessitous prince. Thanks to these subsidies, Croesus, furnished with troops, was the first of all at the rendez-vous, and regained the favour of his father who took him in as partner in this expedition.’

  Croesus later on revenged himself on Sadyattes who had turned him away, confiscating his treasure to the endowment of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The plunder taken from the unhappy banker was large enough to make two pillars of gold and the golden calves, with which the temple of the Goddess was adorned.

  Later we see a banker of Caelenae, Pythias, of Lydian extraction, make a gift to King Darius of a plane tree in gold and a vine in gold. Some while afterwards, doubtless in fear that his immense fortune might only come to excite the covetousness of the prince, Pythias made up his mind to ward off the danger by making a concession. Spontaneously he offered Xerxes subsidies for the war. As the Great King was questioning him in kindly curiosity as to the extent of his wealth, the banker confessed, not without misgivings that he possessed in his coffers two thousand talents of silver, and that he was short of four million darics, by only seven thousand darics.

  Sadyattes, Theocharides, Pamphaes, Pythias, wealthy guardians of treasure, possessing the confidence of the public who as well as princes, envied their riches, struck monetary ingots in the doorway of their counting houses.”

  The above excerpt from Babelon and Nicholas of Damascus illustrates a clear cut case in ancient days of effort by money power to control political succession; for the real reason of the refusal by Sadyattes of the loan to Croesus, although not recorded by Babelon, was that Sadyattes had already pledged himself to the support of Panteleon, Croesus’ half-brother[389] and probably was also the source of the rumours in regard to the “unsuitability” of Croesus for succession to the throne, and the unsatisfactory reports to Alyattes. Panteleon was clearly more “suitable,” and more �
��pliable” than the strong minded Croesus, who, Sadyattes probably knew via his spies, would be his enemy; although his offensive conduct towards a royal son would suggest he considered his position inviolable. The surly arrogance of this Sadyattes in causing the young Croesus to wait at the door, and then refusing him his request in no pleasant manner, so typical of this class of person today, as much as in Croesus’ day, undoubtedly caused Croesus to enquire a little more deeply into this precious metal money “Racket” when he finally did become king, a “racket” which allowed low and unsavoury persons to make a mockery of kingship. The results of his enquiries undoubtedly showed him that above all, for his kingship to be meaningful, monetary emission had to be removed from the control of private persons.

  Further evidence of history would suggest, in Lydia at least, Croesus destroyed the arrogance and power to subversion of this class of persons, not the most noble amongst his subjects, by the institution of the issue of equal weights of precious metal or coin, as state prerogative; thus, he thought, returning to himself as representative of the god on earth, that essential power so necessary towards the maintenance of true order in life, the total control of monetary emission. That the reputed fate of Croesus after conquest by Cyrus, the new Persian Monarch, founder of the Achaemenid Dynasty somewhat later on, was influenced by the longing for revenge of those leaders of finance in Babylon City, in one way or another the main force behind Cyrus and his conquests and for whom Sadyattes would very likely have been important agent or co-conspirator, as previously pointed out, seems reasonable supposition.

  Hence the real source of the so rapid decay of all relatively recent civilizations and so called empires of the last 6000 years, whose establishment was so often due to the behind the scenes activities of bankers as agents for what was necessarily an internationally spread network of bullion interests, was the complete dearth in the later days of such civilizations or empires, of dean and noble men in places of control and power.

  Such natural and truly dedicated leadership had been destroyed, either by the planned discriminatory activities of the bankers, or by the never dying fires of war that maintained these so-called “Empires”. Their places had been taken by the progeny of their slaves, or, as in Sparta, by their women.

  Clearly in that day almost all money in circulation arrived there created and issued by private persons of a class stranger to the whole world, and whose only guide was never more than their indifference to the miseries of mankind. Today, despite the continuance of the naïve belief of those who toil from day to day, that this money is created and injected into the circulation by the presumably benevolent will of the state, it is the same as in the days of the corruption and crumbling of the god-given distribution systems of the Ancient Orient, in the face of the attack on their integrity, by the privately issued commodity currencies of silver.

  This attack later having been intensified when, as a result of the stripping of the ornamentation from tomb and temple, both in Egypt, and right across the ancient oriental world, that silver apex to the inverted pyramid of abstract money by which the great banking houses were manipulating the exchanges, became further augmented by gold, the magic metal so long dedicated to ornament for the god-kings, in life as in death, or to holy ritual. That burning metal, almost a god in itself, now falling into the greasy hands of the money-changers, exchanged with silver in the ratio, so far as the middle East was concerned, of about 13:1.[390]

  So far as ancient Persian and Greek history is concerned, it will be quite safe to say that the apparent beneficiaries of such system were front men for a wider and more international system extending from China to Britain, of which evidence in China may have been that strange Hebrew community whose decaying fragments were found south of Pekin by the Jesuits who entered China in the 17th Century; a community that knew nothing of the Talmud, or of Jesus Christ, and who consequently thought in terms of Christians as in terms of a sect of themselves, and who undoubtedly were the descendants of the agents of a most ancient trading community.[391] The evidence of this world wide financial system in Britain exists in the gold staters of the Iceni, Cassivellauni, Brigantes etc. still existing,[392] and which circulated there long before Julius Caesar. Although gold was obtained in Wales and in Ireland, its use as money could only have been inspired and organized from that central point where the original staters were minted, the Near East and the cities wherein dwelt the controllers of international trade and mining.

  Amongst other principles of political control by money power, certainly one of the most important of all, used in ancient times, just as much as today, was that which is known as liberalism. Liberalism in simplified language meaning that he who hath shall give to him who hath not; not so much out of proper charity, but so that he who hath not may come to put his foot on the neck of him who (formerly) had, and who now foolishly gives him his own strength. Thus money power, by injecting liberalism along the very arteries of society through those underground channels under its control, made sure that what might be described in the language of today as “Permanent Revolution,” would prevent any power group from having control long enough to see the true source of that which is the power of the ruler, if he is to truly be in the saddle, namely, monetary emission. Money Power, then as today, fully understood the necessity towards the continuance of its hegemony, of the promotion amongst the leading families of the states of corrupt persons who took pleasure in destroying their own; persons basically corrupt who had deeply drunk of the poison of liberalism, persons possessed of the wealth of kings because so pleasing to the central designing force, though at the same time having the natural outlook of the slave. truly strange combination!

  One such family identified in ancient times with the promotion of liberalism and its attendant sister, welfarism, both equally beneficial to money power, was that Athenian family known as the Alkmeonidae, who, although suspected at the time of the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) as being the source of the heliograph that sent information across the bay of Marathon to the Persian commanders,[393] strangely enough continued to maintain power and place at Athens. Equally strange had been the awarding of the contract for the rebuilding of the Temple at Delphi after it had been burned down (548 B.C.), to this same family in exile from Athens.

  As previously surmised, International Money Power above all must have sought control of the great temples and oracles. Delphi was such, and the oracle at Delphi was highly regarded over the ancient world. The building of a major temple was a gift which must have been arranged by those interests who were best of all served by the family policies of the Alkmeonidae. It might safely be said that if this same family had been rejected by Athens, the gift came from that financial force whose favour they had clearly enjoyed from generation to generation: namely the money power that guided the policies of the Achaemenid Rulers of Persia and Babylonia.

  Pericles, scion of this notorious family, while being the front man for those forces driving Athens into war with Sparta, was the instigator of the Donatives and later, of theorica,[394] outstandingly undermining factor to Athenian self-esteem and national morale. Theorica allowed two oboli per person to the lessee of the Oratorium[395] and thus two corrupt purposes were served:

  1. It made sure all or at least a great part of the citizenry attended the plays, thus keeping their minds off more serious matters as do cinema and television particularly in this day; more especially keeping their minds off that most serious matter of all which is true understanding of politics; in other words, understanding of the meaning of the essential forces that guided their existence.

  2. It assured the lessee of the Oratorium (and that politician who most promoted his interests), a certain profit.

  A third purpose would also have been served, although there is absolutely no record that says so: the maintenance of an unbalanced budget and consequent stimulation of government indebtedness to private money creative power, i.e. the bankers. If the sophistication of Sales Tax was known to Periclean
Athens,[396] it may safely be assumed were also known the sophisticated practices in relation to government indebtedness as practised particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries today.[397] Officially theorica was drawn from the fund for war preparedness. The only conclusion that can be drawn as to the true meaning therefore of the establishment of theorica,[398] so far as the bankers were concerned, was to further increase necessity of government borrowing in time of war, and so strengthen the hold of that so called National Debt almost certainly held by themselves.[399]

  Thus the principles of the total hegemony of private money creative power were as clearly understood by its masters yesterday, as much as they are today. The limiting factors to the complete destruction with which we are now threatened as a result of the flare-up in this all consuming cancer which began about some three hundred years ago, and now rages on virtually uncontrollable, were, at that time, that kings and councils still ruled, and kings still thought of themselves as the sons of God, the saviours of their peoples. If in any way they had understood the malignance of this growth that had penetrated the sub-structure of life it would have been short shrift for its controllers. Hence the necessity for an absolute secrecy most restrictive in its effects. Clay, the material on which records were kept throughout Babylonia at least, did not have any of the potential of paper so far as went the keeping of records. Parchment and papyrus while not standing up to constant use, were becoming increasingly rare and expensive, and vellum, relatively rare, was not known until the time of Pergamum where the first books written on this material appeared in 198 B.C.[400]

  Neither did those states escape a certain international control of their money such as did not adopt the relatively new idea of coined precious metal money, but continued to use copper, bronze orichalcum, or iron, and whose value depended on the scarcity or otherwise of its circulating symbols relative to the need for them; designated a fiduciary money.