BY F. H. DODGSON. 61 



these mines not only defrayed the entire cost of the adminis- 

 tration of the state, but also built themselves a fleet and 

 surrounded their city with a wall of unusual strength (reixos 

 larxvporepov). Their total returns from these two fields were 

 from two to occasionally as much as three hundred talents a 

 year — an enormous sum for so small a community. The 

 wealthiest mines on the island were to the south and east, 

 opposite the Isle of Samothrace. Herodotus says that Mount 

 Pangaeus, above referred to, is also auriferous. He does not, 

 however, give many particulars in regard to this range. He 

 simply says that it contains gold and silver mines, the most 

 valuable being in the territories of the Pierians, Odomantians, 

 and Satrians. I have also seen it stated — but do not know on 

 what authority — that Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the 

 Great, derived from these mines and those on Thasos and at 

 Scapte Hyle the treasure that enabled him to carry out his 

 projects. So much for Greece, Turkey in Europe, and the 

 islands. The next locality to be mentioned, and the last, is in 

 Asia Minor, and is in all probability the goldfield whence the 

 proverbial Croesus derived no small portion of his wealth. 

 Croesus was King of Lydia, his capital being Sardis on the 

 Pactolus, an affluent of the Hermus ; the sands of the Hermus 

 are auriferous, according to Virgil (Georgics II, 137) ; Herodotus 

 mentions that the Pactolus is auriferous (Herod. I, 93 ; v. 101). 

 He says nothing further as to the sources whence Croesus 

 derived his gold, but from the account he gives of the offerings 

 which Croesus made to Apollo at Delphi, it is quite evident that 

 the yield from his mine must have been very large. Putting 

 the above together it would seem probable that there is an 

 important goldfield about the heads of the Pactolus on the 

 northern slopes of Mount Imolus. 



The French have made a very great success by reopening 

 the silver mines at Lauricem, near Athens. The archffiological 

 discoveries of Dr. Schliemann are due to his knowledge of the 

 ancient authors, and the intelligent care with which he followed 

 the indications they afforded him ; and there is every reason to 

 believe that discoveries of far greater importance from a 

 commercial and industrial point of view would follow the 

 application of modern mining appliances to the abandoned gold- 

 fields of antiquity. 



