ARGENTUM: "Αργυρος: 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. On the other hand, he speaks of Mount Pangœus in Thrace as
containing most productive mines of both metals, and mentions a
silver-mine adjacent to the Lake Prasias on the confines of 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 Greeks in reducing this
metal, and the wasteful process employed.
But
the most extensive and richest mines of Silver known to the ancient
world were in Mount Laurium, or rather the chain of hills occupying the
southern extremity of the Attic peninsula. Xenophon (De Vectigal. 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 Parian 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, that is of silver, for some Lydian prince had preceded
