Israel's prosperity was important: "Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?" (Song of Solomon III, 6.) "The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah: all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord." (Isaiah LX, 6.) And the Queen of Sheba "gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices a very great store, and precious stones; there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon." (1 Kings X, 10.)
The Nimrud Inscription of the great Assyrian monarch Tiglath-Pileser III, tells how "fear of the brilliance of Ashur, my lord, overcame Merodach-baladan, of Yakin, King of the Sea-Country," and how he came and made submission, bringing as tribute "gold—the dust of his land—in abundance, vessels of gold, necklaces of gold, precious stones, the product of the sea (pearls?), beams of ushu-wood, ellutu-wood, party-colored clothing, spices of all kinds."
In the Persian empire frankincense was equally treasured. Herodotus tells us that the Arabs brought a tribute of 1000 talents' weight every year to Darius (III, 97), and that a similar quantity was burnt every year by the Chaldaeans on their great altar to Bel at Babylon (I, 183). From the spoils of Gaza in Syria, 500 talents' weight of frankincense was sent by Alexander the Great to his tutor Leonidas (Plutarch, Lives) who had rebuked him for loading the Macedonian altars too lavishly, remarking that he must be more economical until he had conquered the countries that produced the frankincense! (Pliny XII, 32.) The temple of Apollo in Miletus was presented with 10 talents' weight in 243 B. C., by Seleucus II, King of Syria, and his brother Antiochus Hierax, King of Cilicia. The temple of Venus at Paphos was fragrant with frankincense:
| " | Ipsa Paphum sublimis abit, sedesque revisit |
| Laeta suas ubi templum illi, centumque Sabaeo | |
| Ture calent arae sertisque recentibus halant." | |
| —Virgil, Aeneid, I, 416. |
And to the infant Saviour in Bethlehem came "three wise men from the east, with gifts,—gold, frankincense, and myrrh" (Matt. II, 11), signifying, according to a Persian legend quoted by Yule, "the gold the kingship, the frankincense the divinity, the myrrh the healing powers of the Child."
