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ARGENTUM.
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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
F 2
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