the erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages,
while these works would create plenty by leaving no man unemployed, and
encouraging all sorts of handicraft, so that nearly the whole city would
earn wages, and thus derive both its beauty and its profit from itself.
For those who were in the flower of their age, military service offered
a means of earning money from the common stock; while, as he did not
wish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share, nor yet
to see them receive it without doing work for it, he had laid the
foundations of great edifices which would require industries of every
kind to complete them; and he had done this in the interests of the
lower classes, who thus, although they remained at home, would have just
as good a claim to their share of the public funds as those who were
serving at sea, in garrison, or in the field. The different materials
used, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-wood, and so
forth, would require special artisans for each, such as carpenters,
modelers, smiths, stone-masons, dyers, melters and moulders of gold,
and ivory painters, embroiderers, workers in relief; and also men to
bring them to the city, such as sailors and captains of ships and pilots
for such as came by sea; and, for those who came by land, carriage
builders, horse breeders, drivers, ropemakers, linen manufacturers,
shoemakers, road menders, and miners. Each trade, moreover, employed a
number of unskilled laborers, so that, in a word, there would be work
for persons of every age and every class, and general prosperity would
be the result.

These buildings were of immense size, and unequalled in beauty and
grace, as the workmen endeavored to make the execution surpass the
design in beauty; but what was most remarkable was the speed with which
they were built. All these edifices, each of which one would have
thought it would have taken many generations to complete, were all