Christophe Flament

University of Namur (Belgium)

Introduction

August Boeckh devoted several chapters of his first book of the Staatshaushaltung der Athener to Greek coinage, being perfectly aware of the direct influence of the quantity of precious metals on the prices of commodities. He was, however, unable to evaluate this quantity precisely: he simply stated that the quantity of precious metals first increased slowly in Greece, then grew more rapidly when the treasuries of the East were opened after the conquests of Alexander the Great. According to Boeckh, the prices rose at the same ratio, in such a way that in the time of Demosthenes the money would have been five times less valuable than in the time of Solon.1Boeckh 1857, 8.

An estimation of the quantity of coinage available in the Athenian world is of course essential for the topics to which the first book of the Staatshaushaltung der Athener is devoted;2That is to say prices, wages, interest, and rent.Boeckh perceived it perfectly, but was unable to give a precise figure, because this crucial information was missing in the ancient documents available then. Two hundred years later, no new decisive epigraphic or literary text has come to light, therefore leaving this key question largely unanswered.

Due to the fixity of the Athenian monetary types, numismatics is actually of little or no help here. As Athenian coins bear no distinctive mark, the only possible classification principally rests upon stylistic criteria and consists in grouping together coins that are stylistically similar. But the “style” of a coin simply corresponds to the particular way an engraver - or a group of engravers - featured the Athenian types on the dies. In the most favourable conditions, an expert’s eye would thus be only able to identify coins struck with the dies cut by the same engraver or the same team of engravers.3See Flament 2007a, 28-29, and 59-61, for a more detailed discussion on those topics.

Those remarks should actually have a huge impact on the efforts to quantify Athenian coinage if based on the coins only. To quantify an emission, the number of dies employed has first to be estimated and then multiplied by the number of coins a single die is supposed to strike. But carrying out die-studies is virtually out of the question for all but some of the Athenian issues because of the sheer volume of dies made to produce the huge output of this coinage. More fundamentally, such a process is simply inapplicable to Athenian coinage because, as just explained, the only classification possible is to group together coins struck with dies produced by the same engraver or the same group of engravers, not the coins issued at the same time for the same purposes. In other words, stylistic classification corresponds by no means to a classification of the annual issues.

According to the present state of our numismatic and textual evidence, a precise figure of the quantities of Athenian coinage available during Antiquity is properly unachievable. But we can fortunately take a circuitous route, because textual evidence is sufficient to identify the main parameters determining the rhythm and scale of annual coin production in Athens, two valuable pieces of data for creating a rough idea of the monetary supply during the classical period as well as its main fluctuations.4The main section of this study is an English version somewhat modified and updated of a French text to be published in a forthcoming volume of the Mélanges de la Casa de Velásquez.

The fundamental question is actually: why did ancient Greek cities strike coins? The intensity of monetary output is usually linked to the intensity of the military activities of the issuing city, thus implicitly admitting that coins were primarily struck to pay soldiers.5See first Picard 2000.This equation does not, however, apply to classical Athens, as the funding of the Samian campaign in 440/439 BC - that is to say during the zenith of the Athenian monetary production - clearly highlights.6See Flament 2007b, 123-124.Thucydides’s account (1.118.3) is precise enough to estimate its costs accurately: it lasted 9 months and mobilised 160 triremes, hence the estimated cost of 1,440 talents, at the usual rate of a talent per month per trireme.7Isoc. Or. 15.69, and Nep. Timoth. 1 give the figure of 1,200 talents.The epigraphic document reporting loans granted by the treasurers of Athena during the period 441-439 BC (IG I3 363.19)8See notably Samons 2000, 46 about this document.clearly states that Athenian authorities borrowed from the treasury of their city goddess an equivalent sum in coined money (1,400 talents, at least) to carry on this campaign. Athenian soldiers of the Samian war were thus not paid with brand new coins specifically struck for the purpose of this military operation, but with coins issued at different times and previously stored in the Treasury of Athena.

More broadly, a detailed study of Athenian finance during the Peloponnesian War reveals that Athens funded its military campaigns principally with money borrowed from its deities (from Athena, essentially) or obtained by the phoros.9Flament 2007b, 137-189. But military expeditions were now to a large extent financed by external sources: ibid., 189-236.Nor did Athens strike coins to defray the costs of its troops during the 4th century either. If military effort was particularly intensive during the first half of this century,10Ibid., 189-218.monetary output was for its part particularly low, as the paucity of the surviving coins of this period clearly illustrates.11Among others M?rkholm 1974, 3; Giovannini 1975, 194; Flament 2007c. But we know that Athenian armies transported metal in other forms and minted coins only if necessary: see Günther 2016.It was probably only after 350 BC that coinage greatly increased in volume.12I agree with Descat 2004, 394 who links the Pi-style coinage with the renewed massive mining exploitation of Laurion during the second half of the 4th century. But see Kroll 2011 for a totally different interpretation of the Pi-style coinage: tetradrachmas of Bingen’s Pi I-IV classes would be the result of a vast reminting program whereby all the larger-denomination silver coinage in the city was demonetized and called in for re-striking as a means of raising revenue during the fiscal crisis in the aftermath of the Social War. I am quite sceptical about this interpretation, but it is not the topic of this paper.But the Athenians had by then definitively abandoned the dream of reviving their arche, as well as the expensive military expeditions organized for this purpose.13Flament 2007b, 219-236.To conclude, in Classical Athens, the intensity of the monetary output was obviously not correlated to the intensity of military activities.

So why did Athens strike coins and, more fundamentally, who made the decisions? Regarding the last question, the ekklesia is of course the most natural candidate. But we must immediately concede that records of such decisionmaking, related to the minting of coins, is totally missing from the masses of documents inherited from classical Athens. Furthermore, the pseudo-Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians does not mention coinage among the popular assembly’s prerogatives, and, in the long list of public offices this Constitution gives, none appears to be similar to a “Finance Minister” who would have had the management of the coinage among his responsibilities.

To answer these crucial questions, we actually have to take a key parameter into account: Athenian coins were essentially made of Laurion silver during the Classical period,14For an assessment of the available physical and chemical analyses performed on the Athenian “owl” coinage, see Flament forthcoming.and were therefore nicknamed “l(fā)aureotic owls” (γλα?κε? Λαυρειωτικα?) by Aristophanes in his Birds (1105-1108). It is thus by clarifying the relationships between mining and monetary production or, in other words, the arrangements for converting the ore extracted from the mines into Athenian coins that we can expect to shed light on the key parameters determining the rhythm and scale of coin production in Athens.

Estimating the costs of the mining operations in Laurion during the second half of the fourth century

Of course, Boeckh devoted an entire chapter of Book III of his Staats-haushaltung der Athener to the Laurion silver mines, as well as an important study in the Abhandlungen der K?niglich-Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,15Boeckh 1815.but he did not investigate the link between mining and minting, except when raising the question of whether coins were minted in Laurion. Furthermore, our knowledge of the mining activities in Laurion has greatly improved since the 19th century. Fundamentally, it is now recognised16Since Hopper 1953 at least. But see also Harrison 1968, Appendix D, 316; Healy 1978, 103-105.that the Athenian State owned the ore veins underground, while on the other hand the surface was in private hands. During the 4th century, mines were leased by the polētai (the magistrates who carried out the public contracts in Athens17Their records were inscribed on stone and are now available in Langdon 1991. See on this topic Crosby 1950; Hopper 1953; Vanhove 1996; Shipton 1998; Aperghis 1997-1998.) to private individuals at public auction for a certain period of time, as detailed in Chapter 47 of the pseudo-Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians, a text that also highlights two fundamental characteristics of the Athenian mine administration highly relevant for the topics under discussion:

?πειθ’ ο? πωλητα? ? μ?ν ε?σι, κληρο?ται δ’ ε?? ?κ τ?? φυλ??. Μισθο?σι δ? τ? μισθ?ματα π?ντα, κα? τ? μ?ταλλα πωλο?σι κα? τ? τ?λη μετ? το? ταμ?ου τ?ν στρατιωτικ?ν κα? τ?ν ?π? τ? θεωρικ?ν ?ρημ?νων ?ναντ?ον τ?? [βουλ??]˙ κα? κυρο?σιν, ?τ? ?ν ? βουλ? χειροτον?σ?, κα? τ? πραθ?ντα μ?ταλλα τ? τ’ ?ργ?σιμα τ? ε?? τρ?α ?τη πεπραμ?να κα? τ? συγκεχωρημ?να τ? ε?? ?18The papyrus is here damaged, the number half-erased may be 10 or 3; see Vanhove 1996, 243.?τη πεπραμ?να.

Then there are the ten Vendors, elected by lot, one from each tribe. They farm out all public contracts and sell the mines and the taxes, with the co-operation of the Treasurer of Military Funds and those elected to superintend the Spectacle Fund, in the presence of the Council, and ratify the purchase for the person for whom the Council votes, and the mines sold, the ergasima that have been sold for three years and the sunkechorèmena sold for … years.19[Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 47.2.

- The first of these parameters is the very short duration of the leases: three years only for an ?ργ?σιμον, that is to say a working mine.20Opinions of scholars on the meaning of mine categories (?ργ?σιμα, ?νασ?ξιμα, παλαι? ?νασ?ξιμα) diverge widely. See Crosby 1950; Hopper 1953; Vanhove 1996; Aperghis 1997-1998; Flament 2007b, 69-72; Bissa 2009, 51. See Domergue 2008, 183 for a convenient table summarising most of these proposals.This situation did of course not encourage lessees to make expensive investments because at the end of their lease they could very well be dispossessed of their concession if another candidate submitted a higher bid at the public auction.21See Hopper 1953, 235. Public auction was the usual procedure in Athens for the selling of the right to collect taxes or confiscated properties: see [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 47.2, quoted above.

- Secondly, if the State had the exclusive ownership of the silver deposits as stated above, it did not exploit them itself: the right of exploitation was temporarily sold to private individuals for payments, presumably both delivered immediately and deferred (according to procedures we do not fully understand).22The nature and periodicity of these payments also creates difficulties for the interpretation: one-off payments: Crosby 1950; prytany charges: Hopper 1953. See Shipton 1998 for an alternative explanation: payment indicated on the stelai would correspond to the total amount of a tax of 5 drachmas to be paid by each prytany (but see against this hypothesis Faraguna 2006, 146-147).

To be viable, such an operating system implied that private individuals considered the mining sector attractive. At the very least, mining activities had to be regarded as profitable, i.e., that the profits generated had to be greater than the expenses incurred. Fortunately, many of these expenditures can be reasonably estimated for the mid-4th century, thus adding key data to a theoretical breakeven point of the mining operations in Laurion during that period. Those figures are summarised in the following table commented below:

Nature of expenditures Annual costs

Payments made by lessees to the State ca. 200 talents

Rental and maintenance of the slaves:

- Rental of 15,000 slaves, at the rate of 1 obol each per day ca. 150 talents

- Food supply for 15,000 slaves, at the rate of 2 obols each per day ca. 300 talents

- Maintenance of the working force (fixing the life expectancy of a ca. 50 talents slave at 10 years, and the cost of one slave at 200 drachmas)

Rental of working installations

- workshop for ore processing (?ργαστ?ριον)impossible

- mills (κεγχρε?ν?)to evaluate

- furnaces (καμινο?)

- lifting machinery?

Miscellaneous charges

- equipment such as tools, lighting (oil for lamps), timber for the impossible chambering of mines to evaluate

- fuel for furnaces

- Possibly: rent of the land on which the mining concession was located

Total at least 700 talents

1) Payments made by lessees to the State

Concerning payments made by lessees to the State, they are fixed here at ca. 200 talents per year.23This figure of 200 talents has to be compared with the 100 talents yielded by the mines at the end of the 480’s BC ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 22.7), when mining production was still far from reaching the same level reached during the third quarter of the 5th century. Herodotus also tells that Thasian mines produced ca. 160 talents each year (Hdt. 6.46-47), and that a mine near Lake Prasias brought no less than one talent per day to King Alexander I (Hdt. 5.17).This figure results from multiplying the number of mines being operated at the same time (almost 500, because in about 340 BC, the State leased approximately 140 mines annually24See Aperghis 1997-1998, 18.) by the average amount of the sums indicated in polētai records interpreted as rents due to each prytany. This is the only way25Flament 2007b, 72-80.to reconcile the small amounts (20 or 150 drachmas) indicated in those records with the large ones mentioned by ancient orators (of the order of 1.5 talents26Dem. Or. 37.22; 42.3.).

2) Rental and maintenance of slaves

Because of the very short duration of the leases, most of the lessees did not acquire their own mining equipment, but rented it, especially the working force that consisted essentially of slaves.27On this topic, see Lauffer 1979.Giving a precise figure for the size of the slave population in Laurion is, however, a very risky business, modern estimates ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 individuals.28Ca. 11,000 in Conophagos 1980, 348; 30,000 in Isager and Hansen 1975, 43.

The minimum figure is actually based on Xenophon’s remark in his celebrated Poroi: according to him, 10,000 is the number of slaves the City should buy and rent to mining lessees, but he adds:

?τι δ? δ?ξεται πολλαπλ?σια το?των, μαρτυρ?σαιεν ?ν μοι ε? τινε? ?τι ε?σ? τ?ν μεμνημ?νων, ?σον τ? τ?λο? ε?ρισκε τ?ν ?νδραπ?δων πρ? τ?ν ?ν Δεκελε??

But the State will receive far more than that, as anyone will testify who is old enough to remember how much the charge for slave labour brought in before the trouble in Decelia.29Xen. Vect. 4.25.

This remark is only understandable if more than 10,000 slaves worked in the mines before 413 BC and the occupation of Decelia. The 10,000 slaves of Xenophon are thus no more than his own estimate of the working force that miners needed in the mid-4th century. Furthermore, his final objective was to buy three slaves for each Athenian citizen (4.17); if they were 20,000 at that moment (a strict minimum), it was no less than 60,000 slaves that Xenophon intended to buy.

On the other hand, Thucydides (7.27.3-5) said that 20,000 slaves fled in 413 BC because of the Spartan occupation of Decelia, but he nowhere stated that they were all mineworkers.30Hanson 1992. Some of them apparently took refuge in Thebes: Hell. Oxy. 18 (12).3-5.Finally, the figure of 30,000 slaves is, as far as we know, the result of pure modern speculations.

The figure of 15,000 slaves retained here actually follows from this reasoning. The 10,000 slaves that Xenophon recommended buying were probably unskilled workers, whose main activities were digging and bringing ore to the surface. But in Laurion there were also skilled workers, called τεχν?ται,31Ardaillon 1897, 91-92; Lauffer 1979, 60.principally involved in the metallurgical processing of ore. Many of them were probably attached to an ?ργαστ?ριον, and eventually sold with it, like the 30 slaves of Pantaenetus mentioned in a Demosthenic speech,32Dem. Or. 37.29.as well as those in horoi related to a prasis epi lusei.33IG II2 2747-2748; SEG 32.236.According to Constantin E. Conophagos,34Conophagos 1980, 105.these skilled workers could have counted for no less than 30% of the entire slave population; therefore a population of 10,000 unskilled workers corresponds to ca. 4,000 skilled workers, so a total of ca. 15,000 slaves in the mid-4th century.

Xenophon’s Poroi35Xen. Vect. 4.14.also reveal that most of the slaves working in Laurion were owned by private individuals and rented to the miners at the rate of one obol per day, with the obligation to replace the dead or escaped slaves.36Gauthier 1976, 139.This system, already existed during the 5th century,37The 5th century strategos Nicias possessed 1,000 slaves: Plut. Nic. 4.2, and And. 1.38.38 Picard 2001, 5.spared the entrepreneurs large sums for the start-up of their operation and also guaranteed that they always had the exact number of slaves needed for the work to be carried out.

The working conditions were particularly hard in Laurion, and mortality was very high; the life expectancy of a slave was sometimes estimated at only four to five years.38The working force would thus have to be totally renewed every five years, 3,000 new slaves being bought every year. This is a very high figure. To compare, the planter Edward Littleton estimated that to maintain a workforce of 100 slaves in the 18th century in Barbados, it was necessary to acquire between 8 and 10 new slaves per year.39Quoted by Acton 2014, 261.If we apply this figure to Laurion, 1,500 new slaves would have had to be bought every year. If the average price for a slave was two minas or 200 drachmas,40That is to say the average price for a slave: see, among others, Gauthier 1976, 140.50 talents were annually devoted to the maintenance of the slave population, and this figure is assuredly a minimum.

Finally, living expenses for slaves had to be added to those figures. Public slaves employed in the Telesterion of Eleusis in 329/328 BC received 3 obols per day;41Ibid., 31. But see also the contributions of Eich and Rohde in this volume.a conservative figure would thus be 2 obols per day.

On such a basis, total spending on slaves could be fixed at ca. 500 talents.

3) Rental of working installations

The volume of ore to be treated in Laurion was so considerable that specific working installations were required. They were known as ergasteria (“workshops”)42See Dem. Or. 37.whose numerous remains are still visible today in the Laureotic fields.43Lauffer 1979, 47-49; Conophagos 1980, 213-255; Jones 1982; Photos-Jones and Jones 1994; Kakavoyannis 2001; Rehren et al. 2002, 38ff.; Kepper 2004.There were also furnaces (kaminoi) where pure metal was obtained from the dressed ores. We may also mention other installations known as kenchre?n44Dem. Or. 37.26.(maybe mills to pulverize ore), as well as lifting machines.45As far I know, there is no mention of lifting machinery in Laurion. It is, however, not inconceivable that this kind of equipment was described in the now lost work Περ? τ?ν μεταλλικ?ν μηχανημ?των (On Mining Machinery) written by a certain Strato of Lampsacus (quoted by Diog. Laert. 5.3.59).

Most of the lessees probably rented those working installations as they rented slaves. Statistics based on polētai records reveal that several lessees did actually use the same working installations, because mining leases are far more numerous than those for installations; furthermore, it is worth noting that in the following table the number of installations mentioned in polētai records clearly decreases at each stage of the operational sequence.

?

But we do not know the price for the rental of such equipment. The only figure available comes from a Demosthenic speech entitled Against Pantaenetus: 105 drachmas per month to rent an ergasterion. This sum is, however, not representative at all, because this transaction is part of a prasis epi lusei, a procedure implying that the debtor sold real security to his creditor while reserving the right of redeeming the property upon fulfilment of the contract at an agreed or indeterminate time. In the present speech, the ergasterion of Pantaenetus served as security on a debt of 10,50Hopper 1953, 200-209.0 drachmas he owed to two persons; according to the agreement made then, Pantaenetus paid his debt interest in the form of a monthly installment of 105 drachmas.

4) Miscellaneous charges

Among the miscellaneous charges are expenditures for equipment, such as mining tools,46Ancient sources indicate that mining tools were rudimentary and small in number: hammers (Diod. Sic. 3.12.5), chisels (Hesych. s.v. “ξο??”), and also bars (Poll. 7.125).lighting (oil for lamps), and timber for the shoring up or chambering of the mines.47Dem. Or. 21.167.But wood was also needed as fuel for furnaces. Transformation of ore was a fuel-intensive operation: to produce a drachma of 4 g, ca. 1 kg of charcoal was needed for which 7 kg of wood had to be felled, chopped, stacked and burnt. Under such circumstances, the quick disappearance of tree cover in mining regions like Laurion48Mussche et al. 1967, 71.is anything but surprising.

In Attica, wood was a very expensive commodity:49Mentions of wood prices in IG I3 386.99-101, and 387.109-111; IG IV2/1 108.162; 109.II.144 and 159, and 109.III.20.in his Against Phaenippus (Or. 42), Demosthenes stated that Phaenippus obtained more than 12 drachmas daily for wood cut on his property. For the sake of comparison, a talent of wood cost from 4 obols to 1 drachma and 4 obols in Delos during the Hellenistic period. But what the exact figure would have been for such expenditures for lessees in Laurion is impossible to say. Finally, we perhaps have to add the lease of the land on which the mining concession was located to those expenditures. As already said, if the silver veins were State property, the land surface in Laurion was for its part privately owned.50Hopper 1953, 200-209.Under these conditions, before starting work, miners had to make agreements with the owners of the land where their concessions were located,51Several scholars investigated links between miners and surface owners: Ardaillon 1897, 181-182; Hopper 1968, 320; Gauthier 1976, 113; Osborne 1985, 118; Aperghis 1997-1998, 16-17.and we may legitimately guess that these owners expected a return for the use of their land. It is worth noting that in the famous contract concerning the draining of a marsh in Ptechai,52IG XII/9 191.17-19: [κα? ?ξ?στω δ? Χαιρεφ?νει κα/?] ?ν το?? ?δι?ωτικο?? χωρ?οι? φρεατ?α[?] ποε?ν τ?[ι ?πον?μωι, ?λλ? τα?τα? μ? ποε?τω πλ?ν δι? το? χωρ?]/ου ο?περ κα? πρ?τερον τ?ν τιμ?ν δ?ι? / “Chairephanes will also be allowed to dig pits on private lands for the underground channel, but he cannot proceed without having paid in advance the price for the land” (my trans.). See Knoepfler 2001, 52.Chairephanes was allowed to dig pits in private lands, but not without paying the owner a requested sum as compensation.

In conclusion, given these results and the amount of expenditures impossible to estimate, fixing the break-even point of the Laureotic mines during the intensive phase of exploitation of the second half of the 4th century at ca. 800 talents is probably still below the actual value.

The process of converting Laureotic silver into Athenian coins

The time has now come to ask the crucial question: how did lessees make use of the mine product, that is to say the silver extracted from ore mined, to defray those significant operating costs? What is at stake here is no more than tracing the process of converting silver from the mines into coins.

Of course, payments made by lessees to the State actually created no difficulty, because they could be made in bullion then converted into coins by State authorities themselves. But the other charges (notably for food supply) could, however, not have been paid with bullion, but with coins. To obtain those coins, lessees may have sold some bullion to jewellers or other craftsmen,53Notably to make phials mentioned in huge quantities in the sacred inventories Harris 1995, 58-61, 68-74, 99-100, 148, 152, 154-155, 169-178, 212-214.but of course not all their silver stock: this solution would have implied enormous market opportunities, because almost 500 talents at least (i.e. the equivalent of the annual spending on slaves) had to be sold off in this way every year. Furthermore, the selling of silver bullion ipso facto would mean that the greatest part of the Laureotic silver would not have been coined, because in such a scheme only rents paid to the State would have been converted into coins, that is to say 200 talents at the most. Given the level of coin production in Athens during the Classical period as well as the number of engravers employed in the mint evidenced by the diversity of “styles” recognizable on coins,54Flament 2007a, 61-120.such a scenario seems highly unlikely. On the contrary: it seems inevitable that we must conclude that the greatest part - if not all - of the silver produced in Laurion was actually converted into Athenian coins.

Hence, in my own opinion, the only reasonable assumption to explain this situation is to admit that the mine lessees had the opportunity to bring their silver bullion to the Athenian mint for converting it into coins. A combination of several epigraphical documents will provide us with a glimpse into the modality of such a conversion. The first document is an excerpt of the famous “Coinage decree” (IG I31453) enforcing uniformity of coinage, weights and measures to the Delian allies:55On this document, see Figueira 1998 and 2006; Flament 2010, 12-17.

The first words clearly indicate that this section of the decree deals with operations occurring inside the Athenian mint ([?ν δ? τ?]ι ?ργυροκοπ?ωι). The penultimate line refers to a deduction of an undetermined number of drachmas (three or five?) from the mina.57The formulation is actually similar to the one of the first aparche stela (IG I3 259). 5 drachmas: M?rkholm 1982, 290-292; 3 drachmas: Meiggs and Lewis 1984, 113. See also Figueira 1998, 360.To clarify the meaning of this clause, it is essential to remember that, despite its poor state of preservation, this section of the decree clearly set out provisions regarding conversion of foreign currencies - probably obtained from the allies - into Athenian coins.58Flament 2010, 12-16.Interpreted in this way, this information can easily be compared to those of the Delphic “apousia account” of 336 BC:59On this document, see Picard 1988.

CD II 75, col. I:60The text is edited by Doyen 2011, 244.

Total amount given to Dexios: in number, 122 talents, 26 mina, 7 staters, 1 drachma.

From this we counted, in number, a loss of 16 talents, 47 mina, 1 stater, 9 obols.

The balance in amphictionic is 105 talents, 39 mina, 5 staters, 9 obols.

Salary for Dexios the coiner […] 2 talents, 15 mina, 29 staters, 3 obols. [- - - ] in amphictionic, 1 talent, 50 mina, 5 staters.

The operations detailed in this document are very similar to those dealt with in section V of IG I31453: older currencies (here carefully counted and weighed) have to be melted down to issue new coins. The end of the Delphic document mentions the salary of Dexios to whom the striking of the new Amphictionic coinage was entrusted. Now, Charles Doyen61Ibid.has clearly demonstrated that the sum of 2 talents, 15 minas, 29 staters, and 3 obols exactly corresponds to a salary calculated at the rate of 1.5 drachma or 9 obols deduced from every mina produced.62This percentage wholly corresponds to the manufacturing costs of the golden crowns around the mid-4th century (2.5 %); see IG II2 1496.52-61, and Rathé 1997, 155.As the contexts that generated those two inscriptions are wholly identical, it seems therefore safe to interpret the deduction of an undetermined number of drachmas from the mina in IG I31453 as arrangements for the

payment of the mint staff, and conclude that this deduction corresponds to the

costs of a minting operation. It is worth noting that the manufacturing costs of other metal products were calculated exactly in the same way, that is to say by deducing a given sum from every mina manufactured, as in this excerpt of a 4th century inscription dealing with the manufacture of dowels for the Telesterion in Eleusis:

IG II2 1675.3163The text is edited by Hellmann 1999, no. 11.

?μισθ?θη ? μν? IIIII C)

The mina will be paid 5 obols ?

We may actually wonder if the so-called “Coinage decree” did not simply require the allies to follow the converting procedure of metal the lessees of Laurion themselves were used to follow. In such cases, in Athens, mine lessees would be allowed to bring their silver bullion - and also probably any precious metal - to the mint for conversion into coins in order to meet their financial obligations; they just had to pay the manufacturing and probably assaying costs set at 3 or 5 drachmas for every mina of coins produced. In Athens, the manufacture of coins would thus be considered as a direct extension of the refining process of ore, minting thus being the ultimate stage of the silver mining.

If we are right, the cash reserves of an Athenian miner would have been in the form of homogeneous batches of coins because taken directly from the mint, therefore in mint condition and with numerous die-links. Those correspond exactly to the main feature characterising the hoard (IGCH 134) that Jean Bingen took as a basis to elaborate his famous Pi-Style, which was excavated by the Belgian archaeological team in 1969 in Thorikos, one of the main mining districts of Laurion:64According to Pébarthe 2008, 81, Thorikos with its 23 occurrences, is the place most frequently cited in the epigraphic records.

Dans le cas du trésor de Thorikos 1969, ces trois caractéristiques (proportions des “fleurs-de-coin”, nombre de die-links, et homogénéité du style de la majorité des pièces) apparaissent avec une intensité que je ne connais pas pour d’autres ensembles de cette importance numérique, une intensité tellement exceptionnelle que, sur le plan de l’espace, le fait que Thorikos est en Attique ne suffit pas à l’expliquer.65Bingen 1973, 10 (trans. G. Davis): “In the case of the treasure of Thorikos 1969, the three characteristics (proportion of coins in mint condition, number of die-links, and homogeneity of style for the majority of pieces) appear with an intensity that I have not seen with any other numerically comparable assemblage, an intensity so exceptional that, in terms of space, the fact that Thorikos is in Attica is an insufficient explanation.”

Identifying the parameters determining the rhythm and scale of annual coin production

But this clarification of the links linking mining in Laurion to monetary production is only a first step towards a definition of the main parameters determining the rhythm and scale of annual coin production in Classical Athens.

According to the model of monetary production developed in this study, the break-even point here fixed for the mining activities in Athens, that is to say ca. 800 talents, would thus correspond not only to the minimal quantity of silver produced in Laurion yearly, but also to the minimal amount of metal coined every year. During periods of intensive mining activities, as in the mid-4th century, Athens hence minted the equivalent of 1,200,000 tetradrachmas annually. But this figure is of course a minimum, because profits made by lessees also have to be added to this minimum figure, and the mining industry had a reputation of being particularly lucrative: according to Hyperides, a mine yielded to its lessees 300 talents in three years during the 330s.66Hyp. Eux. 35-36.

Furthermore, in such a system, all the coined metal did of course not necessarily come directly from the Laureotic mines: if the Athenian mint was accessible to any private individual, many silver objects (like vessels, foreign coins, etc.) were also probably converted into Athenian coins.67Picard (2000, 83) made this proposal for the New Style tetradrachmas. See also Flament 2010, 12-29.A Demosthenic speech68Dem. Or. 22.48-49.clearly suggests that during the 4th century the melting down of vessels or offerings always remained an option when public funds were lacking.69See Aleshire 1992.

More fundamentally, the logical extension of this model is that the initiative to strike coins in Athens would not have come from the State, but from private individuals - essentially mine lessees - for the purpose of their financial activities. Several important consequences for the Athenian monetary history follow from this conclusion.

First, State authorities would therefore have an extremely restricted role in the monetary process, a situation that perfectly accounts for the lack of information dealing with this topic in ancient sources. The few decisions directly related to coinage in ancient sources actually suggest that the Athenian state took a greater role in the coining process only when the normal situation was deteriorating: the above-mentioned “Coinage decree,” as well as the emergency coinages at the end of the Peloponnesian War70See Flament 2007b, 118-120.and the Nicophon’s decree of 375Several plays by Aristophanes, as well as a lost play by Pherecratos entitled The Miner, staged during the 430s BC./374See Picard 2001.BC71Rhodes and Osborne 2003, no. 25; Stroud 1974; Psoma 2011.all clearly sound like emergency measures rather than elements of a long-term monetary policy strategy. Under normal conditions, Athenian authorities let coin production regulate itself on the basis of individual needs, guided by the precept that the more silver is coined, the more profits there are for the community, probably also persuaded that silver never loses its value, as Xenophon naively stated in his Poroi.72Xen. Vect. 4.11: το? ?ργυρ?ου ?τ?μου ποτ? ?σομ?νου.

Secondly, the intensity of the monetary production in Athens would thus have to be principally correlated to the intensity of the mining activity in Laurion whose major oscillations can only be briefly sketched here.

The sum of 100 talents (2.6 tons of silver) accumulated in the State treasury from the proceeds of the mining in 483/482 BC73On this famous episode, see Hdt. 7.144, and [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 22.7. See Flament 2013 and 2014.indisputably reflects an intensified exploitation of the mines starting probably at the end of the 6th century.74See Picard 2001.Between the Persian invasions of 480-479 BC and 413 BC, we have to rely to a very great extent on scarce citations in literary texts, principally from the Old Comedy.75Several plays by Aristophanes, as well as a lost play by Pherecratos entitled The Miner, staged during the 430s BC.But judging by the vast quantities of metal coined around the mid-5th century, the mining industry probably reached its zenith at that time.76The people evoked by Xenophon in his Poroi to illustrate the golden area of the mining industry, like Nicias (4.14), or Hipponicos (4.15), all lived during this period.No precise figure can be given for this golden period, but it is fair to assume that the output was then far greater than ca. 800 talents per year. Besides, the Peloponnesian War strongly affected the mining area: as previously explained, the intensity of the monetary output in Athens was not at all correlated to the intensity of military activities. Rather, the climate of insecurity created by the Spartan raids77Thuc. 2.55.1.will have discouraged the Athenians to invest in the mining sector. After a probable recovery during the peace of Nicias,78See Camponetti 2005. Thuc. 6.12.1, 26.2 implies that the Athenian economy benefited from this period of relative peace.the permanent occupation of Decelia by the Spartan army severely disrupted mining activities that almost ceased at the end of the war.

The recovery was then slow; writing in 355/354 BC, Xenophon still complained in Chapter IV of his Poroi that the mines were then being operated at far below their potential and that exploration for new deposits had been only recently, and inadequately, undertaken in his days. Under the financial administration of Eubulus (355-342 BC), however, mining activity increased dramatically: the number of leases in the polētai records rose from 17 in 367/366 BC to a record 62+ in 342/341 BC.79See Flament 2007b, 77-80.Our previous calculations lead us to fix the annual output of the mines during this period at a minimum of ca. 800 talents.

After the end of the 340s BC however, mining activities decreased significantly and even permanently collapsed at the end of the 4th century. Significantly, the coins Athens struck during the 3rd century - that is to say the Quadridigité-style - were no longer made of Laurion silver.80Nicolet and Kroll 1990.This, of course, perfectly illustrates the strong link between the mining industry and coinage in Athens, with lessees of the mines being definitely the main suppliers of the Athenian mint.

Some further perspectives

The quantity of coins annually issued is, however, only one parameter among others that determined the quantities of metal available to the Athenians during the classical period. Many of those coins were actually not available for financial transactions because they were privately or publicly hoarded. To mention only some of the most illuminating figures, at least 10,000 talents were hoarded in the Treasury of Athena before the Peloponnesian War according to Thucydides (2.13.3), and the Treasury of the Other Gods81See Linders 1975.probably also contained hundreds, if not thousands of talents. Concerning private hoarding, it is revealing that repeated eisphorai at the end of the Peloponnesian War probably yielded several thousands of talents to the war effort;82Flament 2007b, 186-189.around 377 BC, the total assets of the Athenians were fixed at ca. 6,000 talents.83Pol. 12.62.6-7 speaks of 5,750 talents; Philochoros (FGrHist 328 F 46) and Demosthenes (Or. 14.19) give the round figure of 6,000 talents. There is a discussion in scholarship about whether the 6,000 talents apply to the property of the whole citizenship or of only the liturgists.

Athenian coins also supplied foreign markets with quantities difficult to assess. During the 5th century, Athenian armies certainly massively contributed to the distribution of Athenian coins around the Aegean area, because an Athenian soldier actually spent half of his pay in the theatre of military operations for his subsistence.84Flament 2007b, 138-143.Therefore, during the first ten years of the Peloponnesian War, we can estimate that more than ca. 3,300 talents of Athenian coins85See the table in ibid., 272.were thus exported by Athenian troops, most of those coins coming from the sacred treasuries that were then the main source of funding for the war effort.

But many other coins circulated abroad through trade channels of which ancient sources only give a partial view. But we have to remember here that in the model of monetary production developed in this study, the majority of the coins newly struck were actually not put into circulation by State authorities, but by private individuals, principally the lessees of the silver mines when paying mining expenditures. As the nature of those expenditures was previously clearly identified and quantified, it is therefore possible to state that a great part of those new coins actually fed the slave and grain trade.86I tried to model the channels through which coins circulated in Flament 2011.

More fundamentally, we may also wonder to what extent the metal of Athenian coins was not reused by the Aegean mints for their own monetary issues, by over- or re-striking it: metal analyses reveal that coins from many Greek cities were actually made of Laurion silver.87I am preparing an assessment on this topic to be published in the forthcoming volume of the Revue Belge de Numismatique.It is, however, impossible to estimate the scale of this phenomenon, but it is of course likely to have significantly reduced the quantities of Athenian coins available.

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