nse wealth, especially those of priestly families. The tribute and
spoil of Asia and Africa, when once it had reached Egypt, hardly ever
left it: they were distributed among the population in proportion to the
position occupied by the recipients in the social scale. The commanders
of the troops, the attendants on the king, the administrators of the
palace and temples, absorbed the greater part, but the distribution
was carried down to the private soldier and his relations in town or
country, who received some of the crumbs. When we remember for a moment
the four centuries and more during which Egypt had been reaping the
fruits of her foreign conquest, we cannot think without amazement of
the quantities of gold and other precious metals which must have been
brought in divers forms into the valley of the Nile.* Every fresh
expedition made additions to these riches, and one is at a loss to know
whence in the intervals between two defeats the conquered could procure
so much wealth, and why the sources were never exhausted nor became
impoverished. This flow of metals had an influence upon commercial
transactions, for although trade was still mainly carried on by barter,
the mode of operation was becoming changed appreciably. In exchanging
commodities, frequent use was now made of rings and ingots of a certain
prescribed weight in _tabonu_; and it became more and more the custom
to pay for goods by a certain number of _tabonu_ of gold, silver, or
copper, rather than by other commodities: it was the practice even
to note down in invoices or in the official receipts, alongside the
products or manufactured articles with which payments were made, the
value of the same in weighed metal.**

* The quantity of gold in ingots or rings, mentioned in the
_Annals of Tkutmosis III._, represents altogether a weight
of nearly a ton and a quarter, or in value some L140,000 of
our money. And this is far from being the whole of the metal
obtained from the enemy, for a large portion of the
inscription has disappeared, and the unrecorded amount might
be taken, without much risk of error, at as much as that of
which we have evidence--say, some two and a half tons,
which Thutmosis had received or brought back between the
years XXIII. and XLII. of his reign--an estimation rather
under than over the reality. These figures, moreover, take
no account of the vessels and statues, or of the furn