原作者序
第一章 巴比伦历史简介 1
第二章 想要得到金子的人 7
第三章 巴比伦首富 13
第四章 致富的七大秘籍 25
第五章 得到幸运女神的青睐 41
第六章 五大黄金法则 53
第七章 巴比伦的债主 65
第八章 巴比伦的骆驼贸易商 77
第九章 巴比伦泥石板 87
第十章 巴比伦最幸运的人 97
Chapter I An Historical Sketch of Babylon 112
Chapter Ⅱ The Man Who Desired Gold 118
Chapter Ⅲ The Richest Man in Babylon 124
Chapter Ⅳ Seven Cures For a Lean Purse 134
Chapter Ⅴ Meet the Goddess of Good Luck 150
Chapter Ⅵ The Five Laws of Gold 162
Chapter Ⅶ The Gold Lender of Babylon 173
Chapter Ⅷ The Camel Trader of Babylon 184
Chapter Ⅸ The Clay Tablets From Babylon 194
Chapter Ⅹ The Luckiest Man in Babylon 204
6.正文
內容試閱：
第一章 巴比伦历史简介
在所有历史的篇章之中，没有哪个城市的生活比巴比伦的更迷人。这个非同寻常的名字充满了财富和尊贵。它拥有的金银财宝是难以置信的。这样一个富丽的城市应该位于热带物产丰富的适宜之地，周围被丰富的森林、矿藏等自然资源所环绕。事实却并非如此。巴比伦坐落在幼发拉底河河畔平坦干旱的山谷中。这里没有森林，没有矿物，没有可供建筑的石料。它甚至没有处在对外贸易的航线上。平均降雨量根本不足以养活农作物。
巴比伦的繁华是证明人类能力的一个典型的例证，人类运用各种能控制的手段来实现伟大目标的能力。所有支持这座大城市的资源都是人创造的，所有的财富也都是人创造的。
巴比伦只拥有两种自然资源——肥沃的土壤和河中的水。巴比伦的工程师利用当时或者任何时期最伟大的建筑造诣之一，水坝和巨大的灌溉运河把水引来。这些运河在平坦的山谷中穿行，将生命之水浇灌在肥沃的土壤上。这个壮举在那些被历史所铭记的伟大的工程中数一数二。这个灌溉系统使巴比伦成为了农产富庶的地方，这在世界上是从未有过的创举。
幸运的是，在漫长的历史过程中，巴比伦一直由世袭王位的国王统治，只是偶尔受到外敌的侵略。尽管巴比伦也发生过战争，但大部分都是当地战争或者防御其他国家侵袭的战争，一些国家因垂涎巴比伦难以置信的财宝而成为雄心勃勃的征战者。这些杰出的巴比伦统治者因自身的智慧、进取心和正义感为历史所铭记。巴比伦没有出现那些寻求征服已知世界的傲慢的君主，这一点使所有国家都对他们的唯我主义表达敬意。
作为一个城市，巴比伦已经不存在了。当那些建设和保存了该城市几千年的充满斗志的人们逐步消失后，它便很快成了一个废墟。这座城市位于亚洲，苏伊士运河以东大约600英里，波斯湾的正北方，北纬30度，几乎与美国亚利桑那州的尤玛市同纬度，气候和尤玛市一样炎热干燥。
今天，这个曾经人口稠密的灌溉农业地区幼发拉底河河畔山谷，再次变成了狂风肆虐的荒地。少量的草和沙漠灌木为了生存，努力对抗狂暴的风沙。肥沃的田地、富饶的城市和运送着丰富商品的商队都一去不复返。如今只有一些依靠放牧来维持生活的阿拉伯游牧人居住在这儿，他们从基督教诞生之时便一直在这里生活。
一些土丘点缀着这个山谷。几个世纪以来，旅行者一直认为这是个荒芜的地方。但被偶尔的降雨冲出来的瓷器碎片和砖块最终吸引了考古学家们的注意力。欧洲和美国博物馆资助的考察队前来挖掘，看看会发现什么。镐和铲子很快证明了这些山丘是古老的城市，也可是说是城市的坟墓。
巴比伦就是其中之一。经过了大约20个世纪，废墟上只剩下了不断被风扬起的沙漠尘土。用砖建造的城墙被挖出时都已经瓦解，再次回归尘土。这就是巴比伦城，昔日那个富饶的城市，如今已成为一堆泥土。巴比伦城被遗弃了这么长时间，活着的人甚至都不知道这座城市的名字，直到考古学家把掩盖在街道、贵族庙宇和宫殿残骸上面的尘沙小心翼翼地移走，人们才开始了解这座城市。
许多科学家认为巴比伦城和这山谷中的其他城市是最古老的有明确记载的城市，它们可以追溯到8000年前。确定这些日期所用的方法十分有趣。巴比伦遗址中发现了对日食的记载，根据这些记载，现代天文学家立即计算出了巴比伦发生日食的时间，从而建立了巴比伦历法与我们历法之间的关系。
Chapter I An Historical Sketch of Babylon
In the pages of history there lives no city more glamorous than
Babylon. Its very name conjures visions of wealth and splendor. Its
treasures of gold and jewels were fabulous. One naturally pictures
such a wealthy city as located in a suitable setting of tropical
luxury, surrounded by rich natural resources of forests, and mines.
Such was not the case. It was located beside the Euphrates River,
in a flat, arid valley. It had no forests, no mines—not even stone
for building. It was not even located upon a natural trade-route.
The rainfall was insufficient to raise crops.
Babylon is an outstanding example of man’s ability to achieve great
objectives, using whatever means are at his disposal. All of the
resources supporting this large city were man-developed. All of its
riches were man-made.
Babylon possessed just two natural resources—a fertile soil and
water in the river. With one of the greatest engineering
accomplishments of this or any other day, Babylonian engineers
diverted the waters from the river by means of dams and immense
irrigation canals. Far out across that arid valley went these
canals to pour the life giving waters over the fertile soil. This
ranks among the first engineering feats known to history. Such
abundant crops as were the reward of this irrigation system the
world had never seen before.
Fortunately, during its long existence, Babylon was ruled by
successive lines of kings to whom conquest and plunder were but
incidental. While it engaged in many wars, most of these were local
or defensive against ambitious conquerors from other countries who
coveted the fabulous treasures of Babylon. The outstanding rulers
of Babylon live in history because of their wisdom, enterprise and
justice. Babylon produced no strutting monarchs who sought to
conquer the known world that all nations might pay homage to their
egotism.
As a city, Babylon exists no more. When those energizing human
forces that built and maintained the city for thousands of years
were withdrawn, it soon became a deserted ruin. The site of the
city is in Asia about six hundred miles east of the Suez Canal,
just north of the Persian Gulf. The latitude is about thirty
degrees above the Equator, practically the same as that of Yuma,
Arizona. It possessed a climate similar to that of this American
city, hot and dry.
Today, this valley of the Euphrates, once a populous irrigated
farming district, is again a wind-swept arid waste. Scant grass and
desert shrubs strive for existence against the windblown sands.
Gone are the fertile fields, the mammoth cities and the long
caravans of rich merchandise. Nomadic bands of Arabs, securing a
scant living by tending small herds, are the only inhabitants. Such
it has been since about the beginning of the Christian era.
Dotting this valley are earthen hills. For centuries, they were
considered by travelers to be nothing else. The attention of
archaeologists was finally attracted to them because of broken
pieces of pottery and brick washed down by the occasional rain
storms. Expeditions, financed by European and American museums,
were sent here to excavate and see what could be found. Picks and
shovels soon proved these hills to be ancient cities. City graves,
they might well be called.
Babylon was one of these. Over it for something like twenty
centuries, the winds had scattered the desert dust. Built
originally of brick, all exposed walls had disintegrated and gone
back to earth once more. Such is Babylon, the wealthy city, today.
A heap of dirt, so long abandoned that no living person even knew
its name until it was discovered by carefully removing the refuse
of centuries from the streets and the fallen wreckage of its noble
temples and palaces.
Many scientists consider the civilization of Babylon and other
cities in this valley to be the oldest of which there is a definite
record. Positive dates have been proved reaching back 8000 years.
An interesting fact in this connection is the means used to
determine these dates. Uncovered in the ruins of Babylon were
descriptions of an eclipse of the sun. Modern astronomers readily
computed the time when such an eclipse, visible in Babylon,
occurred and thus established a known relationship between their
calendar and our own.
In this way, we have proved that 8000 years ago, the Sumerites, who
inhabited Babylonia, were living in walled cities. One can only
conjecture for how many centuries previous such cities had existed.
Their inhabitants were not mere barbarians living within protecting
walls. They were an educated and enlightened people. So far as
written history goes, they were the first engineers, the first
astronomers, the first mathematicians, the first financiers and the
first people to have a written language.
Mention has already been made of the irrigation systems which
transformed the arid valley into an agricultural paradise. The
remains of these canals can still be traced, although they are
mostly filled with accumulated sand. Some of them were of such size
that, when empty of water, a dozen horses could be ridden abreast
along their bottoms. In size they compare favorably with the
largest canals in Colorado and Utah.
In addition to irrigating the valley lands, Babylonian engineers
completed another project of similar magnitude. By means of an
elaborate drainage system they reclaimed an immense area of swamp
land at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers and put this
also under cultivation.
Herodotus, the Greek traveler and historian, visited Babylon while
it was in its prime and has given us the only known description by
an outsider. His writings give a graphic description of the city
and some of the unusual customs of its people. He mentions the
remarkable fertility of the soil and the bountiful harvest of wheat
and barley which they produced.
The glory of Babylon has faded but its wisdom has been preserved
for us. For this we are indebted to their form of records. In that
distant day, the use of paper had not been invented. Instead, they
laboriously engraved their writing upon tablets of moist clay. When
completed, these were baked and became hard tile. In size, they
were about six by eight inches, and an inch in thickness.
These clay tablets, as they are commonly called, were used much as
we use modern forms of writing. Upon them were engraved legends,
poetry, history, transcriptions of royal decrees, the laws of the
land, titles to property, promissory notes and even letters which
were dispatched by messengers to distant cities. From these clay
tablets we are permitted an insight into the intimate, personal
affairs of the people. For example, one tablet, evidently from the
records of a country storekeeper, relates that upon the given date
a certain named customer brought in a cow and exchanged it for
seven sacks of wheat, three being delivered at the time and the
other four to await the customer’s pleasure.
Safely buried in the wrecked cities, archaeologists have recovered
entire libraries of these tablets, hundreds of thousands of
them.
One of the outstanding wonders of Babylon was the immense walls
surrounding the city. The ancients ranked them with the great
pyramid of Egypt as belonging to the “seven wonders of the world.”
Queen Semiramis is credited with having erected the first walls
during the early history of the city. Modern excavators have been
unable to find any trace of the original walls. Nor is their exact
height known. From mention made by early writers, it is estimated
they were about fifty to sixty feet high, faced on the outer side
with burnt brick and further protected by a deep moat of
water.
The later and more famous walls were started about six hundred
years before the time of Christ by King Nabopolassar. Upon such a
gigantic scale did he plan the rebuilding, he did not live to see
the work finished. This was left to his son, Nebuchadnezzar, whose
name is familiar in Biblical history.
The height and length of these later walls staggers belief. They
are reported upon reliable authority to have been about one hundred
and sixty feet high, the equivalent of the height of a modern
fifteen story office building. The total length is estimated as
between nine and eleven miles. So wide was the top that a six-horse
chariot could be driven around them. Of this tremendous structure,
little now remains except portions of the foundations and the moat.
In addition to the ravages of the elements, the Arabs completed the
destruction by quarrying the brick for building purposes
elsewhere.
Against the walls of Babylon marched, in turn, the victorious
armies of almost every conqueror of that age of wars of conquest. A
host of kings laid siege to Babylon, but always in vain. Invading
armies of that day were not to be considered lightly. Historians
speak of such units as 10,000 horsemen, 25,000 chariots, 1200
regiments of foot soldiers with 1000 men to the regiment. Often two
or three years of preparation would be required to assemble war
materials and depots of food along the proposed line of
march.
The city of Babylon was organized much like a modern city. There
were streets and shops. Peddlers offered their wares through
residential districts. Priests officiated in magnificent temples.
Within the city was an inner enclosure for the royal palaces. The
walls about this were said to have been higher than those about the
city.
The Babylonians were skilled in the arts. These included sculpture,
painting, weaving, gold working and the manufacture of metal
weapons and agricultural implements. Their Jewelers created most
artistic jewelry. Many samples have been recovered from the graves
of its wealthy citizens and are now on exhibition in the leading
museums of the world.
At a very early period when the rest of the world was still hacking
at trees with stone-headed axes, or hunting and fighting with
flint-pointed spears and arrows, the Babylonians were using axes,
spears and arrows with metal heads.
The Babylonians were clever financiers and traders. So far as we
know, they were the original inventors of money as a means of
exchange, of promissory notes and written titles to property.
Babylon was never entered by hostile armies until about 540 years
before the birth of Christ. Even then the walls were not captured.
The story of the fall of Babylon is most unusual. Cyrus, one of the
great conquerors of that period, intended to attack the city and
hoped to take its impregnable walls. Advisors of Nabonidus, the
King of Babylon, persuaded him to go forth to meet Cyrus and give
him battle without waiting for the city to be besieged. In the
succeeding defeat to the Babylonian army, it fled away from the
city. Cyrus, thereupon, entered the open gates and took possession
without resistance.
Thereafter the power and prestige of the city gradually waned
until, in the course of a few hundred years, it was eventually
abandoned, deserted, left for the winds and storms to level once
again to that desert earth from which its grandeur had originally
been built. Babylon had fallen, never to rise again, but to it
civilization owes much.
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