in their capital a library of 200,000 volumes.[371] Pergamus carried on a vast traffic; its cereals were exported in great quantities to most places in Greece.[372] Cyzicus, situated on an island of the Propontis, with two closed ports forming a station for about two hundred ships,[373] rivalled the richest cities of Asia. Like Adramyttium, it carried on a great commerce in perfumery,[374] it worked the inexhaustible marble-quarries of the island of Proconnesus,[375] and its commercial relations were so extensive that its gold coins were current in all the Asiatic factories.[376] The town of Abydos possessed gold mines.[377] The wheat of Assus was reputed the best in the world, and was reserved for the table of the kings of Persia.[378] We may estimate the population and resources of this part of Asia from the armies and fleets which the kings had at their command at the time of the conquest of Greece by the Romans. In 555, Attalus II., and, ten years later, Eumenes II., sent them numerous galleys of five ranks of oars.[379] The land forces of the kings of Pergamus were much less considerable.[380] Their direct authority did not extend over a great territory, yet they had many tributary towns; hence their great wealth and small army. The Romans drew from this country, now nearly barren and unpeopled, immense contributions both in gold and wheat.[381] The magnificence of the triumph of Manlius and the reflections of Livy, compared with the testimony of Herodotus, reveal all the splendour of the kingdom of Pergamus. It was after the war against Antiochus and the expedition of Manlius that extravagance began to display itself at Rome.[382] Soldiers and generals enriched themselves prodigiously in Asia.[383] The ancient colonies of Ionia and Æolis, such as Clazomenæ, Colophon, and many others, which were dependent for the most part on the kingdom of Pergamus, were fallen from their ancient grandeur. Smyrna, rebuilt by Alexander, was still an object of admiration for the beauty of its monuments. The exportation of wines, as celebrated on the coast of Ionia as in the neighbouring islands, formed alone an important support of the commerce of the ports of the Ægean Sea. The treasures of the temple of Samothrace were so considerable, that we are induced to mention here a circumstance relating to this little island, though distant from Asia, and near the coast of Thrace: Sylla’s soldiers took in the sanctuary the Cabiri, an ornament of the value of 1,000 talents (5,820,000 francs [£232,800]).[384] [Sidenote: Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia.]