chap. I.
GOLD AND SILVER IN GREECE.
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caused such distress for food, that at lengthPytheus was induced to direct that only one-fifthinstead of the whole of the citizens should infuture be compelled to devote themselves tothose operations.
The story of Pytheus is important to one ofthe objects of the present inquiry, inasmuch asit shows, as far as regards the particular case,that the acquisition of gold and silver was onlyto be obtained, in that remote period, by themines being in the hands of severe as well asarbitrary despots, who spared neither the enjoy-ments, the labour, nor even the lives of theirsubjects in the eager pursuit after the metallicriches of their dominions.
It does not appear that the free states ofGreece possessed a store of gold and silver equalto that acquired by these absolute rulers ofsmaller portions of territory. When 1 Pericles ,in order to animate the Athenians in their de-fence against the Peloponnesians , about the year431 before Christ, addressed them, he stated theamount of the money then in the citadel to beone million one hundred sixty-two thousandtwo hundred and fifty pounds; and in additionto that the gold in the statue of Minerva, whichmust be replaced if appropriated to the publicservice, to amount to one hundred twenty-four