THE PERSIAN PERIOD
silver plating of the Temple of Solomon is sometimes counted incredible but it is restrained and conservative compared with Polybius' account of this palace, and Polybius himself claims nevertheless that his tale is a "cautious" account, as he is anxious to keep well within the truth in matters beyond ordinary belief. He says that every plank of the cedar and cypress woodwork in the palace (which included a temple) was overlaid with silver or gold while all the tiles were of silver. Even after most had been stripped off by Alexander (335) Antigonus (325) and Seleucus Nicator (312-280) there was enough left in the temple (gold on columns, silver tiles piled up in it, a few gold bricks and a good many silver ones) for Antiochus in 210 to turn into coin to the amount of nearly $5,000,000.
All this evidence that the spoils of war continued to be laid up at Ecbatana until the time of Alexander is of interest to
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