CHAP. I. GOLD AND SILVER IN GREECE. 19 



caused such distress for food, that at length 

 Pytheus was induced to direct that only one-fifth 

 instead of the whole of the citizens should in 

 future be compelled to devote themselves to 

 those operations. 



The story of Pytheus is important to one of 

 the objects of the present inquiry, inasmuch as 

 it shows, as far as regards the particular case, 

 that the acquisition of gold and silver was only 

 to be obtained, in that remote period, by the 

 mines being in the hands of severe as well as 

 arbitrary despots, who spared neither the enjoy- 

 ments, the labour, nor even the lives of their 

 subjects in the eager pursuit after the metallic 

 riches of their dominions. 



It does not appear that the free states of 

 Greece possessed a store of gold and silver equal 

 to that acquired by these absolute rulers of 

 smaller portions of territory. When 1 Pericles, 

 in order to animate the Athenians in their de- 

 fence against the Peloponnesians, about the year 

 431 before Christ, addressed them, he stated the 

 amount of the money then in the citadel to be 

 one million one hundred sixty-two thousand 

 two hundred and fifty pounds; and in addition 

 to that the gold in the statue of Minerva, which 

 must be replaced if appropriated to the public 

 service, to amount to one hundred twenty-four 



1 Thucydides' Pelopormesian War, book ii. 



C 2 



