{Ten thousand talents} (muri(936e) talant(936e)). A talent was
6,000 denarii or about a thousand dollars or 240 pounds. Ten
thousand times this is about ten or twelve million dollars, an
enormous sum for that period. We live today in the age of
national debts of billions of dollars or even of pounds sterling.
The imperial taxes of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria for one year
were only 600 talents while Galilee and Perea paid 200 (Josephus,
_Ant_. xi. 4). But oriental kings were free in the use of money
and in making debts like the native kings of India today.