The Wealth of Megalopolis
He does, however, state in the course of his narrative
that, from the spoils of Megalopolis, six thousand talents fell to the Lacedaemonians, of
which two thousand, according to custom, were given to
Cleomenes. This shows, to begin with, an astounding ignorance of the ordinary facts as to the resources of Greece:
a knowledge which above all others should be possessed
by historians. I am not of course now speaking of the
period in which the Peloponnese had been ruined by the
Macedonian kings, and still more completely by a long continuance of intestine struggles; but of our own times, in
which it is believed, by the establishment of its unity, to be
enjoying the highest prosperity of which it is capable. Still
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even at this period, if you could collect all the movable property of the whole Peloponnese (leaving out the value of slaves),
it would be impossible to get so large a sum of money together.
That I speak on good grounds and not at random will appear
from the following fact. note Every one has read that when the
Athenians, in conjunction with the Thebans,
entered upon the war with the Lacedaemonians,
and despatched an army of twenty thousand men, and manned
a hundred triremes, they resolved to supply the expenses of
the war by the assessment of a property tax; and accordingly had a valuation taken, not only of the whole land of
Attica and the houses in it, but of all other property: but yet
the value returned fell short of six thousand talents by two
hundred and fifty; which will show that what I have just said
about the Peloponnese is not far wide of the mark. But at
this period the most exaggerated estimate could scarcely give
more than three hundred talents, as coming from Megalopolis
itself; for it is acknowledged that most of the inhabitants, free
and slaves, escaped to Messene. But the strongest confirmation
of my words is the case of Mantinea, which, as he himself
observes, was second to no Arcadian city in wealth and numbers. Though it was surrendered after a siege, so that no one
could escape, and no property could without great difficulty be
concealed; yet the value of the whole spoil of the town, including the price of the captives sold, amounted at this same
period to only three hundred talents.
