The Babylonian Woe

by David Astle

  [178] Humphrey Michell: Sparta, p. 27.

  [179] G. Grote: History of Greece, Ch. 9; (Elgin Groseclose: Money, the Human Conflict, p. 18.)

  [180] W.P Wallace: The Early Coinages of Athens and Euboia, p. 35, The Numismatic Chronicle, 1962.

  [181] Elgin Groseclose: Money, the Human Conflict, p. 16; University of Oklahoma, 1934.

  [182] Paul Einzig: Primitive Money, p. 225; London, 1949.

  [183] According to Gertrude Coogan, the first act of Solon after having had the Dictatorship urged on him by a powerful sector of the Athenian population, was abrogation of the privilege of silver mining, and, as a consequence, the privilege of money issuance by the nobility. I am, however, of the opinion that Miss Coogan missed the point here. What actually happened, it is true, would have been abrogation of the privilege of money issue by the nobility, but not as directly exercised by such nobility, but as through it being farmed out by them to the Arameo-Phoenician traders, i.e., the Babylonian Money Power.

  [184] “But I perhaps, owing to the number of advocates may be classed in the common body; the battle of Cannae has made you a sufficiently respectable accuser. We have seen many men slain, not at Trasimene but at Servilius. Who was not wounded there with Phrygian steel?” Cicero: Orationes, “Pro S. Roscius” (Vol. I, p. 65; C.D. Yonge; London, 1883.).

  [185] Kenneth Pearson: The Dorak Affair, London, 1967.

  [186] Strabo, XIII, iv, 5. (Del Mar: History of the Precious Metals, p. 51.)

  [187] Christopher Dawson: Age of the Gods, p. 295.

  [188] James H. Breasted: History of Egypt, p. 281.

  [189] Ibid. p. 559.

  [190] Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt: Tutankhamen, p. 33. New York, 1963.

  [191] Encyclopaedia of World History, p. 37, Boston, 1948.

  [192] The fact that after the destruction of Croesus by Cyrus, 547 B.C., Sardis remained the principal mint for the whole Persian Empire, and for which it turned out Sigloi as to the Babylonian standard, gives further strength to the idea.

  [193] Frederick William Madden, M.R.A.S.: Coins of the Jews, p.29; London; 1881.

  [194] Charles Seltsman: Greek Coins, pp. 34-35.

  [195] Frederick William Madden, M.R.A.S.: Coins of the Jews, p. 6. (footnote).

  [196] Cambridge Ancient History, p. 392, Vol. 1.

  [197] According to the table on p. 35, “Greek Coins” by C. Seltsman, the Aeginetan drachma was established without any doubt at its given standard, because in the time of Pheidon, the ratio of silver to iron was 400:1. He clearly had been advised to establish the new silver drachmas and obolos so that they would have the same purchasing power as the now discarded iron obolos and “Drax.” according to their valuation in an International market where money was metal by weight.

  [198] Obviously for discounting Bills of Exchange, raising money against Bills of Lading, Warehouse Receipts, and the realization into that which circulated as money of the promissory note issued as between friends or otherwise.

  [199] Oskar Seffert: Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, p. 91.

  [200] Visiting Merchants and Ships’ Captains.

  [201] Oskar Seffert: Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, p. 91.

  [202] Jacquetta Hawkes: Dawn of the Gods, p. 262; New York; 1968.

  [203] Referring to the Hellenic terminology in connection with banking transactions and professions etc. Professor Heichelheim of vast scholarship recorded “That the banking transactions of the individual bankers, money lenders, and debtors influenced the whole economic life and even, to a certain degree, the intellectual development in Attica, the territories of the Delian League and in many other polis territories of our period, since the fifth, if not occasionally sixth centuries B.C. will be obvious from the above list which has a surprising number of specializations.” Fritz Heichelheim: An Ancient Economic History, Vol. II, pp. 196-197; Leyden; 1958-1970.

  [204] Fritz Heichelheim: An Ancient Economic History, Vol. 1, p. 290; Leyden. 1958. 1970.

  [205] Houghton Mifflin (Publishers): Encyclopedia of World History, p. 48; Boston; 1940.

  [206] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, p. 22; London; 1966.

  [207] Sir William Ashley: Economic Organizations of England, p. 96-118. London; 1933.

  [208] Fritz Heichelheim: An Ancient Economic History, Vol. I, p. 290.

  [209] A. Del Mar: History of the Precious Metals, p. 81; New York, 1968.

  [210] A. Del Mar: Money and Civilization. Also John R. Elsom. pp. 49-50

  [211] Commander Guy Carr: Pawns in the Game, pp. 19, 20, 21.

  [212] G. Ravenscroft Dennis: The House of Cecil, p. 61. London, 1914.

  [213] Illustrated London News, Nov. 11th, 1911, p. 762.

  [214] Lucien Wolf: The Resettlement of the Jews in England; London; 1888.

  [215] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, p. 28.

  [216] F.P.G. Guizot: Histoire de la République d’angleterre, pp. 154-155; Paris; 1854.

  [217] Max Dimont: Jews, God, and History, p. 291. New York; 1962.

  [218] According to the letters of Quang Chang Ling (1878); (History of the Precious Metals; p. 348; A. Del Mar): “ It was in the year 1498 that the Portuguese made their way around the Cape (of Good Hope). In 1510, under Albuquerque, they treacherously seized the East Indian city of Goa, and leaving a garrison in it, sailed away to Malacca which they had seen and coveted in 1508. They plundered Malacca of a booty so enormous that the Quinto, or fifth, of the king of Portugal amounted to 200.000 gold cruzados, a sum equivalent to $5,000,000.00.”

  “We have our own theory concerning the sources of your present riches. We ascribe it in part, to your gains from the piratical conquest, enslavement and murderous extinction of the American races, but chiefly to the profitable trade with the Orient. From the opening of this trade to 1640, when the Portuguese were driven from Japan, and the British first acquired territory in Hindustan, three of your European nations alone took a thousand million dollars in gold and silver from Asia; two thirds as much as they wrung from all America during the same period. From Malacca alone they took 25.000.000; from Japan, up to the date mentioned, four hundred millions; from India and China still greater sums (in gold or silver coin, or bullion).”

  [219] The Chapters in Del Mar’s History of Civilization dealing with this period, will repay the reading.

  [220] Andreades: History of the Bank of England, pp. 14-32.

  [221] Ibid, p. 19-20.

  [222] Ibid. p. 22.

  [223] A. del Mar: History of Monetary Crimes, PP. 7-44.

  [224] Pepys Diary, Aug 17th, 1666. Diary and Correspondence. 5 vols. London, 1848.

  [225] Anderson, Adam, p. 485, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, Vol. II, London, 1787-1789.

  [226] Charles II was totally in the hands of the bankers and goldsmiths as is revealed by the following extract from D. MacPherson’s Annals of Commerce, (p. 428). “Charles being in want of money, the bankers took 10% of him barefacedly, and by private contracts on many bills, orders, tallies and debts of that King, they got 20, sometimes 30% to the great dishonour of Government. This great gain induced the Goldsmiths to become more and more lenders to the King, to anticipate all the revenues, to take every grant of Parliament into pawn as soon as it was given; also to outvie each other in buying and taking to pawn bills, orders and tallies, so that in effect, all the revenue passed through their hands.”

  [227] Will Durant: The Reformation; p. 459.

  [228] Commander Guy Carr: Pawns in the Game, p. 20.

  [229] According to A. Andreades (History of the Bank of England. p. 30.), Frederick Harrison says in his biography of Oliver Cromwell: “Noble were the efforts of the Protector to impress his own spirit of toleration on the intolerance of his age. He effectively protected the Quakers; he admitted the Jews after an expulsion of three centuries, and he satisfied Mazarin that he had given to Catholics all the protection that he dared.”

  [230] Commander Guy Carr: Pawns in t
he Game, p. 19-21.

  [231] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, p. 28.

  [232] Ibid.

  [233] Ibid.

  [234] Robert L. Owen was the senator who wrote and introduced the legislation setting up the Federal Reserve (Central Banking) system in 1913. His foreword to a book written by a Miss Gertrude Coogan shows that he lived to bitterly regret his part in writing and introducing this Bill. The remark made later by President Wilson, who had paved the way for the Bill — “I am a most unhappy man. Unwittingly I have ruined my country” — shows that Owen was not alone in his remorse. The Central Banking System known as the Federal Reserve System and towards the creation of which he had been the principal instrument, though apparently state department in the same way as the Bank of England, was in reality no more than the instrument through which the so-called International Bankers harnessed the burgeoning energies of the American peoples to themselves, their own world wide needs and purposes. From first to last, which perhaps has not yet come, it was a privately owned and controlled institution.

  [235] John R. Elsom: Lightning over the Treasury Building, PP. 29-30; Forum Press; Boston.

  [236] R. McNair Wilson: God and the Goldsmiths, p. 48.

  [237] His dismissal was effected through the agency of Marie-Antoinette. As she disliked Turgot personally, no doubt she was a ready instrument.

  [238] A. Goulévitch: Czarism and Revolution, p. 225.

  [239] Ibid. p. 223.

  [240] Ibid., p. 224.

  [241] Cyrus Adler: Jacob Schiff, His Life and Letters, New York, 1928.

  [242] Although it is really very difficult to see what exactly would have been left for this class of people, often multi-millionaires, to revolt against by 1949, which also includes the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon in the United States.

  [243] Also according to the author of Czarism and Revolution (p. 224), “in the Spring of 1917, Jacob Schiff openly boasted of having been instrumental in overthrowing the Czarist regime.”

  [244] According to Dr. Carroll Quigley (p. 52.) in the review by W. Cleon Skousen outstanding characteristics of the international bankers were:

  “… they remained different from ordinary bankers in distinctive ways: (1) they were cosmopolitan and international; (2) they were close to governments and were particularly concerned with questions of government debts. (3) their interests were almost exclusively in bonds and very rarely in goods. (4) they were accordingly fanatical devotees of deflation. (5) they were almost equally devoted to secrecy and the secret use of financial influence in political life. These bankers came to be called ‘international bankers’ and, more particularly, were known as ‘merchant’ bankers in England, ‘private bankers’ in France, and ‘investment bankers’ in the United States. In all countries they carried on various kinds of banking and exchange activities, but everywhere they were sharply distinguishable from other, more obvious kinds of banks, such as savings banks or commercial banks.”

  [245] Arthur Zapolsky Arnold, Ph.D.: Banks, Credit, and Money in Soviet Russia, p. 57; Columbia; 1937. Also see the article by Lenin in “Pravda,” May 29th-30th, 1917: The threatening catastrophe and boundless promises. Of equal interest and strikingly similar in the language used is the comment of Lionel Rothschild on the subject of banking as quoted by Lord Beaconsfield (Benjamin D’israeli) in 1844: “Can anything be more absurd than that a nation should apply to an individual to maintain its credit, and with its credit, its existence as a state and its comfort as a people?”

  [246] Arthur Zapolsky Arnold: Banks, Credit, and Money in Soviet Russia, p. 96; Columbia; 1937.

  [247] Fr. Dennis Fahey: Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, Dublin; 1964.

  [248] (a) Arthur Zapolsky Arnold: Banks, Credit, and Money in Soviet Russia, pp. 96-97. (b) Paper Money during the epoch of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, (Moscow State Publishers, 1920) p. 4.

  [249] A. Goulévitch: Czarism and Revolution, p. 225.

  [250] Ecclesiastes. Chapter 1, Verse 10; King James Version.

  [251] P.N. Ure, M.A.: The Origins of Tyranny; New York; 1922.

  [252] Ibid.

  [253] P.N. Ure: The Origins of Tyranny, p. 8; New York; 1922.

  [254] It was the custom in ancient times to bury hoarded wealth (tangible) beneath the floor of the house.

  [255] The Origins of Tyranny, p. 8, p.N. Ure, M.A., New York, 1922.

  [256] Hence the situation at Athens so similar to the situation in the Anglo-Saxon world today. Athens at that stage of the Peloponnesian War was undoubtedly completely under the political control of the banks (or trapezitae). It was not long after the battle of Aegospotami, 405 B.C., in which Lysander of Sparta destroyed the whole Athenian fleet as it lay drawn up on the beach, that the war ended with the usual results of such “Great” wars in so called “democratic” states, and with Athens completely dependent on privately created money for its finances, that is, on the International Bankers, and with such types of persons suitable to them and their plans for the future, occupying key positions. The victor, Sparta, was equally dependent on their good will, as a result of those concessions undoubtedly made at the Treaty of Miletus, 412 B.C. in order to obtain money such as was desirable internationally, and with which could be purchased the ships so necessary to defeat Athens, and without which the war could not have been brought to definite conclusion.

  [257] The Frogs of Aristophanes, lines 717 to 733, trans. by B.B. Rogers (with slight variations). (Page 138, Greek Coins, Charles Seltsman, M.A., London, 1933.)

  [258] In exactly the same way as Lenin, Dictator (or Tyrant) of Russia 1917-1922 was supposed to be drawn from the Nobility, or as Mao-Tse-Tung, at a later date dictator in China, was supposed to have derived from a similar class in China.

  [259] The following letter circularized amongst American Bankers by European Banking interests during the American civil war gives a most revealing light on this subject. There is no reason to suppose that the motives of the trapezitae of the Greek city states were in any way more altruistic: “ Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are in favour of, for slavery is but the owning of labour and carries with it the care of the labourers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labour by controlling wages.” This letter, known as the Hazard Circular, is to be found on Pages 44-45 in The Money Manipulators by June Grem.

  [260] Ure: The Origins of Tyranny, p. 15.

  [261] Ibid. p. 14.

  [262] Ibid. p. 59.

  [263] Ibid. p. 46.

  [264] A. Del Mar: A History of the Precious Metals, pp. 47-51.

  [265] Cambridge Ancient History, p. 392, Vol. I.

  [266] Sir Charles Woolley: Abraham, p. 121-126.

  [267] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England. Also see Tragedy and Hope, by Dr. Quigley.

  [268] A. del Mar: The Halcyon Age of Greece, p. 5. There also were to be found outlying places in the Orient where the ratio of gold to silver went as low as l:1 during the 1st Millennium B.C., remaining so until a very late date, in certain instances. It is reported by Sir Henry J. Reid, who wrote during the 19th Century, in his book Japan (Chapter XVIII), that the ratio of silver to gold, governing the use of the precious metals in settlement of trade balances, was still 1:1 in Japan during the 17th Century A.D.; long after contact with Europeans. The advantage the European bullion brokers took of this situation with its resultant disturbance to the status quo, was one of the main factors leading up to the almost total expulsion of Europeans from Japan during the period 1624 A.D. - 1853 A.D.

  [269] Sir Charles Woolley: Abraham, p. 122.

  [270] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, pp. 22-26.

  [271] Theodore Mommsen & Joachim Marquardt: Manuel des Antiquités Romaines, p. 12, Tome IX; De l’Organisation Financière chez les Romaines, Paris, 1888.

  [272] Ibid. p. 68.

  [273] In its origins in 100 B.C., Lex Majestus (lex appuleia de mai
estate imminuta) was an extension of the definition of treason as being internal revolt, to include any act impairing the “Majesty” of the Roman people. By the time of the early Empire, this law had been extended to cover almost any word or deed against the Emperor, and, it may reasonably be assumed, those who guided his policies. Spies and informers were everywhere. Of this period Tacitus wrote at the very beginning of the Annals: “What has been transmitted to us concerning Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, cannot be received without great distrust.” He further wrote in The Histories: “But when the battle of Actium had been fought and the interests of peace demanded the concentration of power in the hands of one man, this great line of classical historians came to an end. Truth suffered in more ways than one. To an understandable ignorance of policy, which now lay outside public control, was in due course added a passion for flattery or else a hatred for autocrats. Adulation bears the ugly taint of subservience, but malice gives the false impression of being independent.” (The Histories; I.I.; Tr. K. Wellesley; London; 1964.)

  [274] It is to be noted that the seal to the establishment of Gyges on the throne of Candaules, otherwise known as Myrsilus last king of Hittite descent on the throne of Lydia, and who he had cuckolded and destroyed, apparently with the ready assistance of Candaules’ wife, was the pronouncement of the Pythian Oracle (Herodotus, Book I). Clearly the Oracles would be one of the most important instruments of the international money creative power towards the furtherance of its purposes; and it would have sought, as much as possible, to keep them under its control.

  [275] John Richard Green: A Short History of the English Peoples, p. 205; London; 1936.

  [276] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, p. 73; London; 1966.

  [277] R.A.G. Carson: Coins, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, p. 106.

  [278] A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, p. xxvii. In the words of H.S. Foxwell who wrote the preface to this work in giving the reasons why no adequate history of the Bank of England appears to have been written previous to Andreades: “ The first is the remarkable absence of official records in connection with the Bank, especially for the first century of its activity. It has often been observed that the English are peculiarly fortunate in this matter of records;. The Bank of England stands out as a striking exception to the rule. It never seems to have published any reports or even to have preserved its own minutes and accounts.”