Sinan-Pasha, the Turkish Marius, seven times exiled and seven times consul, yet dying at last at eighty while conducting the army to Hungary, left a heritage worthy of a king. Among his immense possessions the historian enumerates thirty-two cuirasses incrusted with rubies, fifteen strings of huge pearls, sixty bushels of fine pearls, seven tablecloths bespangled with diamonds, all accumulated during campaigns in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Another potentate, the Grand Vizier Sokolli, exhibited a love of magnificence worthy of the most reckless Roman profligates. His garden, near Tokat, was the wonder of Asia Minor, and was called the garden of Paradise, “Djennet-bagni.” Its parterres, instead of being covered with natural flowers, sparkled with rubies and precious stones imitating the form of flowers and surpassing them in splendor. This unique display of art was finally destroyed by the victorious barbarian hordes from Asia, and the beautiful imitations of flowering vegetation were borne off to the distant steppes to be transferred into ornaments for arms and horse-gear. In forming a conjecture of the value of the treasures of the Turkish Seraglio, the antiquary naturally and justly recalls to memory the magnificence of early history and the numerous spoliations of ancient nations that eventually fell into the grasp of the Greek and Roman Emperors. Let us follow briefly the historian among some of the fragments of history which relate to this subject, and seem to indicate that the treasures of the earth gathered during the last two thousand years in reality drifted in course of time and by the fortunes of war to the Greek Capitol. It is the sad epitome of man’s greatness and his insignificance. For the pillage which graced the triumphs of the Greek and Roman arms not only represented the peaceful industry of nations, but they were also often the memorials of the destruction of the earth’s fairest hopes. Rome, in the height of her glory, displayed a magnificence worthy of the valor of her arms and the magnitude of her conquests. Her temples were profusely decorated with gems, and her nobles vied with each other in the possession of the rare and the beautiful. At times the Coliseum exhibited the wealth of the nation and the liberality of its rulers. The poet who describes the games of Carinus affirms that the porticos of the immense edifice were gilded, and the extensive circles which divided the ranks of spectators from each other were studded with a precious mosaic of beautiful stones,-- “Balteus in gemmis in lita portico aureo Certatim radiant,” etc. In the triumphs of Rome the spoils of the last conquest were not only displayed, but the accumulated riches of the Empire were ostentatiously exhibited to view at the same time.