[92] The mountain region of Laurium has been occasionally visited by modern travellers, but never carefully surveyed until 1836, when Dr. Fiedler examined it mineralogically by order of the present Greek government. See his Reisen durch Griechenland, vol. i, pp. 39, 73. The region is now little better than a desert, but Fiedler especially notices the great natural fertility of the plain near Thorikus, together with the good harbor at that place,—both circumstances of great value at the time when the mines were in work. Many remains are seen of shafts sunk in ancient times,—and sunk in so workmanlike a manner as to satisfy the eye of a miner of the present day.—p. 76.
[93] Herodot. vii, 144. Ὅτε Ἀθηναίοισι γενομένων χρημάτων μεγάλων ἐν τῷ κοινῷ, τὰ ἐκ τῶν μετάλλων σφι προσῆλθε τῶν ἀπὸ Λαυρείου, ἔμελλον λάξεσθαι ὀρχηδὸν ἕκαστος δέκα δραχμάς.
[94] All the information—unfortunately it is very scanty—which we possess respecting the ancient mines of Laurium, is brought together in the valuable Dissertation of M. Boëckh, translated and appended to the English translation of his Public Economy of Athens. He discusses the fact stated in this chapter of Herodotus, in sect. 8 of that Dissertation: but there are many of his remarks in which I cannot concur.
After multiplying ten drachmæ by the assumed number of twenty thousand Athenian citizens, making a sum total distributed of thirty-three and one-third talents, he goes on: “That the distribution was made annually might have been presumed from the principles of the Athenian administration, without the testimony of Cornelius Nepos. We are not, therefore, to suppose that the savings of several years are meant, nor merely a surplus; but that all the public money arising from the mines, as it was not required for any other object, was divided among the members of the community,” (p. 632).
We are hardly authorized to conclude from the passage of Herodotus that all the sum received from the mines was about to be distributed: the treasury was very rich, and a distribution was about to be made,—but it does not follow that nothing was to be left in the treasury after the distribution. Accordingly, all calculations of the total produce of the mines, based upon this passage of Herodotus, are uncertain. Nor is it clear that there was any regular annual distribution, unless we are to take the passage of Cornelius Nepos as proving it: but he talks rather about the magistrates employing this money for jobbing purposes,—not about a regular distribution: “Nam cum pecunia publica quæ ex metallis redibat, largitione magistratuum quotannis periret.” Corn. Nep. Themist. c. 2. A story is told by Polyænus, from whomsoever he copied it,—of a sum of one hundred talents in the treasury, which Themistoklês persuaded the people to hand over to one hundred rich men, for the purpose of being expended as the latter might direct, with an obligation to reimburse the money in case the people were not satisfied with the expenditure: these rich men employed each the sum awarded to him in building a new ship, much to the satisfaction of the people (Polyæn. i, 30). This story differs materially from that of Herodotus, and we cannot venture either to blend the two together or to rely upon Polyænus separately.
I imagine that the sum of thirty three talents, or fifty talents, necessary for the distribution, formed part of a larger sum lying in the treasury, arising from the mines. Themistoklês persuaded the people to employ the whole sum in ship-building, which of course implied that the distribution was to be renounced. Whether there had been distributions of a similar kind in former years, as M. Boëckh affirms, is a matter on which we have no evidence. M. Boëckh seems to me not to have kept in view the fact, which he himself states just before, that there were two sources of receipt into the treasury,—original purchase-money paid down, and reserved annual rent. It is from the former source that I imagine the large sum lying in the treasury to have been derived: the small reserved rent probably went among the annual items of the state-budget.
[95] Herodot. vii, 239.
[96] Herodot. vii, 8-138.
[97] Herodot. vii, 145. Φρονήσαντες εἴ κως ἕν τε γένοιτο τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν, καὶ εἰ συγκύψαντες τωὐτὸ πρήσσοιεν πάντες, ὡς δεινῶν ἐπιόντων ὁμοίως πᾶσι Ἕλλησι.
[98] Herodot. viii, 92.