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Argentum, Silver

Amethystus, Amethyst Page of 453 Argentum, Silver Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
ARGENTUM.
67
ARGENTUM : "Apyupos : Silver.
In the ancient world Silver was to the same extent the peculiar production of Europe, that Gold was of Asia. Hero­dotus makes no mention of any mines of silver in the latter country, and even expressly notices that the Scythians and Massagetœ, though abounding in gold, had no silver at all. But he speaks of Mount Pangœus in Thrace as having most productive mines of both metals, and mentions a silver-mine adjacent to the Lake Prasias in Macedonia that used to bring in a talent of metal (60 lbs.) in weight per day to Alexander I. (v. 17) : a proof this of the extraordinary richness of the ore, considering the little skill of the Greek in reducing this metal.
But the most extensive and richest mines of silver were in Mount Laurium, or rather the chain of hills occupying the southern extremity of the Attic peninsula. Xenophon (De Vec-tigal. iv.) describes these mines as having been worked from time immemorial, as was testified by the heaps of rubbish and slag, rivalling in height the natural hills. The earliest coinage known to the world was the produce of these mines, for the old tradition is evidently (on the testimony of the coins themselves) well founded which makes Phidon King of iEgina (b.c. 869) the first that struck coin. Lucan quotes a tradition, pointing to a not very distant locality, which assigns this invention to Itoneus, a Thessalian king. These mines at Laurium were in their fullest activity just before the Peloponnesian war. Xeno­phon mentions that Nicias (the unfortunate commander of the expedition to Syracuse) kept a thousand slaves, always main­taining the same number, whom he hired out to a Thracian, Sosias, for one obol per man per day clear of taxes. This would make 166-1/4 drachmas daily, or about 71.: a large sum, indicative
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Amethystus, Amethyst Page of 453 Argentum, Silver
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