Eddy, Samuel_The Gold in the Athena Parthenos_AJA, 81, 1_1977_pp. 107-111

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The Gold in the Athena ParthenosAuthor(s): Samuel EddySource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Winter, 1977), pp. 107-111Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/503656 .

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1977] ARCHAEOLOGICALNOTES 107

the man-eating Stymphalian Birds are a mythical ex-

pression for the supposed pestilential vapors exhaled bythe marshes. The water of the lake is beautifully clearbut nevertheless the inhabitants of the valley are saidto suffer much from fever. This is not strange, sincethe plain immediately to the east of the lake is

swampy.The representations on our vase depict both hero

and deity, Herakles on his work of mercy and Artemis

the goddess of wild Nature appeased. The jugcould have been dedicated to one of the numerouscults of Artemis. It is functionally sound in its de-

sign and serviceable when used as a dispenser of

liquid; when, however, at rest with the handle side

displayed (fig. 3)-it is an ikon in the full Byzantinesense of the word, the epiphany of Artemis, mistressof man and beast, in whose cult occur orgiasticdances and the sacred bough 14-invisibly visible

participant and foredancer in her own cult dance.15

J.R.A. TwELEUNIVERSITYF DENVER

14 M.P. Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion, tr. F. Fieldsen

(Oxford 1925) 28, and W.F. Otto, Die Gotter Griechenlands

(Frankfurt/Main 1947) 81-91, esp. 82.15 An hypothesis which would offer a solution to Tolle's

problem (supra n. 3).

THE GOLD IN THE ATHENA PARTHENOS

To supervise purchases of material for the goldand ivory statue of Athena Parthenos which Pheidias

made, the Athenians, as usual, chose a number ofcitizen Commissioners called Epistatai. There were

presumably ten of them, one from each tribe, and if

they served in the same way as the Commissionersof the Statue of Hephaistos, they were in office yearafter year until the statue was completed.' They were

subject, like all such administrators, to official scrutiny,and simple versions of their annual accounts were

engraved on a number of small stelai of Pentelicmarble which were set up in public view on the

Acropolis. We possess fragments of them. They con-tain some tantalizing bits of information which sug-gest asking where the Athenians obtained the goldwhich went into the statue.2

The stones show that the Commissioners spent pub-

lic money over a period of about eight years duringwhich Pheidias was creating his awesome masterpiece.The best preserved stele is the one for 440/439, whichrecords simply that the board of Epistatai to whom

Kichesippos of Myrrhine was Secretary received asincome one hundred talents. We are to infer that

this was in silver money. It came from the Treasurersto whom Demostratos of Xypete was Secretary. Weare to understand that the Treasurers were those of

Athena, who supervised Athens' single largest fundof money. The inscription then states baldly that theCommissioners bought a named weight of gold witha specified amount of cash and a named weight of

ivory with another specified sum of money.4 Therest of this account is broken away, but it doubtlesslyrecorded in a few lines that the Epistatai spent therest of their hundred talents to purchase other ma-terials and to pay the salaries of Pheidias and hisassistants.

So abbreviated asystem

ofpublic accounting

wasbelieved sufficient because evidently the only impor-tant thing it was necessary to show was that the in-come and expendituresof the Commissioners balanced.The Epistatai themselves were not even always named,although the board included no less a personage thanPerikles.5

The accounts say simply that the Commissioners

bought (ZovEfly)gold without specifying their source.

Broadly speaking, there were only two sources ofmetal open to them. One was the open market of

private individuals. The second was some kind of asource under Athens' official control. There are strongindications that the Epistatai obtained their gold from

the latter.A weight of not less than forty-four talents of

gold was required for the great statue.6In 440/439

the Commissioners paid eighty-seven talents, 4,652drachms, five obols of silver for gold weighing six

talents, 1,618 drachms, and an uncertain number of

obols. Meiggs-Lewis read the figure for obols as I for

one, but Donnay reads it as T for one quarter-obol.7This disagreement is of no importance in this enquiry.

1 IG12, 370, lines 2-4.

2 G. Donnay, Comptes de l'Athena chryselephantine du

Parthenon, BCH 91 (1967) 50-86; R. Meiggs and D.M.

Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford

1969) no. 54 (hereafter cited as Meiggs-Lewis, GHI). The

argumentation of a new sequence of the fragments promised

by Lewis on p. 149 of Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, has not yet ap-

peared, although the author has kindly supplied me with notes,and I follow his chronology here.

SB.D. Meritt, Athenian Financial Documents (Ann Arbor

1932) 230-31; W.D. Dinsmoor, The Tribal Cycles of the

Treasurers of Athena, HSCP Suppl. I (1940) 163.

4 G. Donnay (supra n. 2) 54-55; Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, no. 54.

5 Philochoros, FHG 328 F 121. The Secretaries of the board

were evidently named so that if accusations of malfeasance were

made,the Commissionersouldbe identifiedrompresumablymore detailed records in the state archives. Perhaps the con-viction of Pheidias (Philochoros, loc. cit.; Plut. Per. 31.2-5)

was one of the reasons that the public accounts of the Com-missioners of the Propylaia were rather more detailed aboutboth income and outlay: IG

12, 363-67=Meiggs-Lewis, GHI,no. 60.

6 1 follow the figure for weight of gold given by Philochoros,FHG 328 F 121. He was a scholar of exact learning, and his

precise number makes the forty talents of Thuc. 2.13.5 look

like a rounding-off. The fifty talents of Ephoros (Diod. Sic.

12.40.3) is simply inflation of Thucydides. The ratios of goldto silver at this time are discussed by W.E. Thompson, Gold

and Silver Ratios at Athens during the Fifth Century, NC

(1964) 103-23; D.M. Lewis, New Evidence for the Gold-Silver

Ratio, Essays in Greek Coinage Presented to Stanley Robinson

(Oxford 1968) 105-10.7 G. Donnay (supra n. 2) 68; Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, 147.

This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 02:54:20 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions







108 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY [AJA 81

Assuming that the silver:gold ratio was on the order

of 13:1, five obols of silver would purchase only /13of an obol of gold, and the Athenians did not write

so complex a fraction in public inscriptions. The stone

cutter was almost certainly asked to engrave the

amount of gold bought either as the nearest full obol

-as Meiggs-Lewis read the stone-or as the nearestsmall fraction for which there was a simple sign, the

quarter obol-as Donnay reads it. The importantfigure, anyway, was the one for the silver money,which must have been exact so as to add up with theother lines to make the round hundred talents whichwere given the Epistatai.

If we use the reading for one obol, then the silver:

gold ratio was 13.9993:1, and this is so close to ex-

actly i4:I, that, given Greek methods of notation, we

must understand that the precise weight of goldbought could not be expressed by the usual signs, andthat the price in question was, in fact, exactly I4:1.

The metal acquired this one year was about a sev-enth of the entire amount needed. Fragments of otherstelai show that in some years before 440/439 ratherless was obtained.' But whatever the amounts boughtyear by year, to purchase forty-four talents of goldwithin a period of eight years was to create an extraor-

dinary demand for the metal which must have driven

up the price in the open market. The remarkable factswhich emerge from the stele for 440/439 are that the

price was exactly I4:i and that the Commissioners ob-tained the gold from a single source. We can infer thelatter because the stele for (probably) 439/438 distin-

guishes two sources, having two entries for purchasesand a summary in the dual.9

The price of I4:I for 440/439 is not an isolated in-stance. The same price was received by the Commis-sioners of the Parthenon when they sold excess goldin 434/433-10 We are almost certainly in the presenceof an official price, for if this buying and selling was

conducted on a free market, this identity of a roundnumber is a very remarkable coincidence. It is easierto believe that we are dealing with transfers of metalfrom one fund to another.

There is abundant contemporary evidence that the

market price of gold was otherwise. Herodotus, writ-

ing about 440 or so, says without qualification that

normally it was I3:I.11 How and Wells believe thathis figure is a rounding off of the exact ratio of

131/:1.12 They argue that the latter was the price

which Xenophon knew around 400 B.C.13 It is alsothe measurable relationship of silver to gold in extant

Lydian and Persian coins: twenty silver sigloi of 5-5grams were equivalent to one gold daric of 8.4 grams.This ratio remained constant in Asia from about 570to 350 B.C., showing incidentally that the availabilityof gold must have been fairly uniform over this long

period.'4We have some actual prices of gold which show

that about the time Herodotus wrote the price of goldat Athens fluctuated above the 131/3:I ratio. Some timebefore the inventory of Athena's property for 434/433was made, the goddess had been given a gold crown

weighing sixty drachms.15 Assumingthat it cost

I,ooosilver drachms to make, as D.M. Lewis has argued-Athenian crowns almost always cost multiples of evenhundreds of drachms-the silver-gold ratio when the

gold was bought was about 1623:1.16 She also owned

a gold phiale weighing 1,200 drachms.'7 If it costthree talents, the ratio when it was made was

i5:1.And there were two gold crowns made not long be-

fore 432/431 which weighed eighty drachms. 8If theywere worth i,200 drachms, the ratio was now hold-

ing steady at 15:1. Actually, we should deduct aboutfive percent of these prices to cover the cost of manu-

facture, so that the ratios should be lowered to, say,16:1 and i41/3:1 respectively. Whatever the exact

figure, neither was the 14:1 of the purchases forthe Parthenos.

The reason was that what little we know of goldproduction in the fifth century B.C. shows that the

metal was scarce because it was mined in only a veryfew places in the Aegean world. Macedonia had small

workings opened probably in the sixth century.19Gold was also found along the Thracian coast, notablyaround Mount Pangaios and in the Hebros river.20

8 IG 12, 359 from 447/446-445/444; IG12, 358 for 442/441;

and IG 12, 356 from some year in the intervening period. If

Hesperia 30 (1961) 262, no. 74 is really a fragment of these

accounts, and if Meritt has correctly restored the amount of

silver as [M]•L] , and if all this money was spent ongold, then over eleven talents weight was obtained this one

year. But, because this bit of stone is so badly mutilated that

no more than three signs are preserved on it, it is best to

regard Meritt's attribution as unproven.9 IG I2, 356.10 IG

12, 352, lines 21-23=Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, no. 59.11 Hdt. 3.95.12 W.W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus

(London I9I2) I, 287.

13 Xen. An. 1.7.18.

14B.V. Head, Historia Nummorum2 (London 1911), pp.

xl, 826; (hereafter HN2); C. Seltman, Greek Coins2 (London

1955) 61-62; S.P. Noe, Two Hoards of Persian Sigloi (Numis-matic Notes and Monographs no. 136, New York 1956);

E.S.G. Robinson, The Beginnings of Achaemenid Coinage,NC (1958) 189, 191.

15IG 12, 276, line 4.16 1 owe this argument to U. Koehler, Aus der Finanz-

Verwaltung Lykurgs, Hermes 5 (187I) 225-26, and especi-ally to D.M. Lewis, New Evidence for the Gold-Silver Ratio,

Essays in Greek Coinage (Oxford 1968) Io6-Io7.17 IG

12, 256, lines 6-7.

18 IG 12, 258, line I9.19Hdt. 5.I7; Str. 14.5.28 (68o); Orth in RE Suppl. Bd.

IV (1924) 117; O. Davies, Roman Mines in Europe (Oxford

1935) 233-35; R.J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology

(Leiden 1963) VII, 140 (hereafter Forbes, Technology).

20Hdt. 6.46.7; 7.112-3; 9.75; Thuc. 1.100.2; Xen. Hell.

5.2.17; Diod. Sic. 16.3.8; Str. 7.frr. 33-34; Bliimner in RE VII

(1912) 1555-78; S. Casson, Macedonia, Thrace, and Illyria

(Oxford 1926) 68-69, 71-73; 77-79; Forbes, Technology, VII,

139.








1977] ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTES 109

There were placers in wealthy Lydia, in her gold-bearing Paktolos river and its sources in Mount Tmo-

los.21 Gold came from Lampsakos, Abydos, and As-

tyra.22 Except for Pangaios, the output of most ofthese places seems to have been so short-lived that bythe end of the sixth century most were probably ex-

hausted.23 In the fifth century none of these statesissued a gold currency which we could associate withthe blessing of continuous, abundant mineral wealth.Lampsakos, it is true, had an electrum currency, butit was scarce.24 In the Aegean the island of Thasos

may have produced a little gold, as did Siphnos, but

by the fifth century the workings of the latter had beenflooded by the sea.25

We know the names of only a few private gold sup-pliers. There were the Athenians Oloros and his son

Thucydides, who owned mine on the coast of

Thrace, and also the Corinthian Architeles.26But theirsources cannot have produced large amounts. Even so

powerful a man as the tyrant Hieron of Syracuse had

trouble finding enough gold to make a tripod andNike as presents for Apollo, and he had to look as farafield as Corinth, where Architeles had, we are told,been accumulating small amounts over a long pe-riod.27

Attica itself produced no gold.28 Hence, if the Com-missioners of the Statue had to buy gold in the openmarket, they had to obtain it either from dealers likeArchiteles or one of the gold-producing states. Thenearest and easiest of the latter, the only polls whosemines we know were functioning in the mid-fifth cen-

tury, was the mining district of Thasos on the main-land near Skaptesyle. Herodotus visited these minesand knew

quitea

lot about them. He says they pro-duced the abundant annual revenue of eighty talents.29He cannot mean the weight of gold produced. If hedoes, Thasos would have had an annual income from

gold mining alone equivalent to more than I,ooo silver

talents, a greater sum than imperial Athens enjoyedfrom all sources at the height of her power.30He mustbe expressing the value of the gold in silver. At a ratioof 13'/3:1, the weight of gold produced by the Skapte-syle mines would have been on the order of six talents,some 340 pounds, a year. With so small an output asthis, it is understandable why Hieron had trouble

finding metal for his offerings. And, if Hieron had

trouble, how could Athens, in 440/439, in one of

eight years in which the statue was being made, findsix talents weight of gold at a price of exactly 14:i

?Moreover, about 465 B.C. when Thasos rebelled

from Athens, the Thracians gained control of themines, and Athens' effort to claim them for herselfended disastrously in the bloody defeat inflicted by

the Edonoi near Ennea Hodoi.31 In the 450s and440s, Athens was not, as some have thought, in con-trol of the Thracian mines. While the statue was beingbuilt, therefore, Athens could not have dictated theprice of Thracian gold, but would have had to paywhatever the Odrysian middlemen demanded.

The answer must be, of course, that the Commis-sioners' gold, or, at least much of it, was not foundon the open market. This being so, the only othersource open to them was the supply of electrumand gold coinage which flowed into Athens as part ofthe annual tribute of her allies. And there is certainevidence that while gold was coming into Athens'treasure in the 450s and

440s,there is no evidence

ofexpenditure or of accumulation unless it was in themetal which went into the Parthenos.

The postscript of tribute-quota list I for 454/453says that the tribute came in both as silver and as

chrusion, which means either electrum or gold. Inthis year, the postscript says, the chrusion was paidin the electrum currency of Kyzikos, equivalent toabout-the inscription is damaged-fifteen talents ofAthenian silver.32

No subsequent list has such an addendum, but wecan show that after 454/453 some states continued topay with Kyzikene electrum or with Persian gold.Athens valued Kyzikenes at twenty-four Attic drachms

when offered by a state in payment of tribute.33Wecan detect payments in electrum when partial pay-ments are made in amounts exactly divisible by twen-

ty-four. Thus, in 443/442 Tenedos paid two talents,5,280 drachms, exactly equivalent to 720 Kyzikenes.34Other states which made payments in electrum wereDrrdanos, Elaious, Madytos, and Alopekonnesos, allneighbors of Kyzikos in the Hellespontine tribute dis-

trict.35 And if the relatively small number of partialpayments shows a few states paying with electrum, itmust be a fair inference that many other states alsoused the same currency in years of normal, full pay-ment.

As for darics, the unique amounts of tribute paid21 Hdt. 1.93;

5.49, I10; Str.I3.4.5 (625-26); 14.5.28 (68o).

22 Lampsakos: Theophr. de lap. 32; Abydos: Xen. Hell.

4.8-37; Astyra: Str. 13.1.23 (59I).23 Forbes, Technology, VIII, 163.24 C. Seltman (supra n. 14) 113.25 Thasos: Hdt. 6.46-47; Thuc. I.Ioo.2. Siphnos: Hdt. 3.57;

Paus. 10.11.2.

26 Oloros and Thucydides: Thuc. 4.105.1; Plut. Cim. 4.I.Architeles: Theopompos, FGH 115 F 193.

27Theopomp. (supra n. 26); G. Glotz, Ancient Greeceat Work (New York 1926) 231-32.

28 Orth in RE, Suppl. Bd. IV, 117; Forbes, Technology, VII,139.

29 Hdt. 6.46.7.

30 In 431, Athens' income from all sources was about i,oootalents (Xen. An. 7.1.27).

31Hdt.9.75;

Thuc. 1.100.2-3; 4.I02.I-2; Diod. Sic. 11.70-

75. The argument on possession of these mines is developedby P. Perdrizet, Scaptisyl6, Klio io (910o) 1-27, and it isfollowed by J. Pouilloux, Recherches sur l'histoire et les cultes deThasos, I (Paris 1954) Io7-1o9.

32 B.D. Meritt, The Tribute Quota List of 454/3, Hesperia41 (1972) 416.

33 S. Eddy, The Value of the Cyzicene Stater at Athens

in the Fifth Century, Museum Notes 16 (1970) 13-22.

34 List I3.V.6.

35 S. Eddy, Some Irregular Amounts of Athenian Tribute,AJP 94 (1973) 47-54.








110 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY [AJA 81

by the dynast Sambaktys and certain small states inKaria in the 450s show that their payments were

probably made in Persian gold.36 It is, therefore, also

quite possible that some of the Greek states in Asiawhich had no coinage of their own paid in darics,which were one of the very few truly international

currencies of the fifth century. They were certainlyplentiful; Herodotus believed that a certain grandeeof Lydia had possessed not fewer than 3,993,000.37

Athens received almost enough chrusion to makethe statue. If the amount received in 454/453 wasfifteen talents, we might assume that a roughly simi-lar amount came in during each of the four years ofthis first period of assessment (454/453-451/450).

Then, about 450, the Decree of Klearchos banned the

minting of silver. The effect ought to have been toforce more states than before to use gold and electrum.We might assume that double the amount of chrusioncame in during each of the three years of the second

period of assessment (450/449-447/446). We might,then, estimate that between 453 and 446, by whichtime work on the statue had begun, a minimum of

150 talents (silver value) of electrum and gold hadcome into Athena's treasure. But that would nothave been all that was available, because gold andelectrum must have been accumulated before

454/453-By 450, we know, the entire treasure amounted to up-wards of 5,000 talents (silver value).38 It is impos-sible to know how much chrusion was included, buta minimum amount may be estimated very roughly.On the basis of the fifteen talents received in 454/453,let us assume that during the nine years following the

organization of the Delian Confederacy in 478/477,

out of the 460 talents assessed only five a year camein as gold or electrum; that, as the league expanded,during the next seven years the amount increased to

ten; and, finally, that during the last seven years, downto 455/454, to fifteen. This would make a total of220 talents (silver value). Adding this to the amountestimated for the period 454/453-447/446, we reacha grand total of 370 talents. The real amount of chru-sion which came in was probably greater. Athens,then, accumulated more than half of the forty-fourtalents (by weight) required.

One might argue that some of the chrusion receiveddid not accumulate but was expended as pay for thecrews of the Confederacy's warships. Possibly. But,

after 455 or so, when nearly all the states had stoppedfurnishing warships, the navy was predominately

Athenian. Athens found it inconvenient to pay herown men with foreign gold. The Commissioners ofthe Parthenon were given at least seventy-four Lamp-sakene and twenty-seven and one-sixth Kyzikenestaters when construction of the building began, and,

although these coins were equivalent to nearly half

a talent of silver, the Commissioners never spent them,one annual board passing them on to the next.3 The

inscription which lists the military expenses of 432/431twice mentions payments made by the Treasurers ofAthena in drachms, which proves that these expenseswere not met with gold.40 If Athenian workmen orsailors had been paid in darics or staters, they wouldhave had to wait twenty-five days for their wages-assuming a scale of a drachm a day-because these

foreign coins were worth so much.41 And paymentsin foreign currency would have made money-changingnecessary, which would have cost an exchange premi-um. The unsuitability of gold money in Athenian eyesis best shown by the fact that Athens normally minted

none.We know that little gold accumulated in the state

treasuries. By 434/433, at least 3,000 talents had beencarried up to the Acropolis for safe-keeping, all in

national coin, which means silver. Thucydides saysthat the entire treasure on the Acropolis in 431, verynearly 6,000 talents, was in coined silver.42 The frag-mentary inventory of the Treasure of the Other Godsfrom 429/428 shows that down to that year they hadamassed little gold or electrum.43Yet this fund, whichwas largely built up between 434/433 and 429/428was rather large, because by 423/422 it had loanedthe Athenians just over 820 talents.44

If, then, there is reason to think that little gold wasspent as pay, and perfect evidence that virtually nonewas laid up in the treasure down to 429/428, whatbecame of the large amount of chrusion which weknow was received as tribute? Since the gold for thestatue was not bought at market price, but at the con-trolled price of I4:I, and since the only gold whichAthens could control was that which had been re-ceived as tribute, it must be that much of the goldwhich went into the big statue was from currency. Itwould certainly have been an enormous convenienceand advantage for the Athenians to have tapped sucha source, because that would have made dealing inthe open market wholly or partly unnecessary. The

amount of gold required for the statue was doubtlesscalculated before Pheidias's work began to be worth

36 Eddy (supra n. 35) 54-59.

37 HN2, 826; C.M. Kraay and M. Hirmer, Greek Coins

(London 1966) 358. Grandee: Hdt. 7.28-9.38 Papyrus Decree, ATL II, D 13.

3 IG I2, 339-54. IG 12, 352 of 434/433 is reproduced in

Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, no. 59, with the new reading for the num-

ber of Lampsakenes.40 Hicks-Hill, Sources for Greek History2 (Oxford 1951) no.

79, lines 21, 25. The perfectly preserved sum of 5,535 drachmsin line 25 will not allow substitution of a whole numberof sigloi or Kyzikenes, proving that the payment was in Atticsilver. Neither IG 12, 293=Hicks-Hill, Sources for Greek His-

tory2 (Oxford 1951) no. 61, which summarizes the money spentto subdue Samos and Byzantion in 440, nor IG I1, 295+=Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, no. 61, which is the expenses of the two

squadrons sent to Kerkyra in 433, specifies what sort of moneywas provided.

41Eddy (supra n. 33).42 3,000 talents: IG IV, 91I=Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, no. 58A.

6,00o talents: Thuc. 2.13.3.

43IG 12, 3I0.44 IG 12, 324, lines

II9-20•=Meiggs-Lewis,GHI, no. 72. The

fund of the Other Gods was organized in 434/433 by one ofthe Decrees of Kallias: IG 12, 91=Meiggs-Lewis, GHI, no. 58A.








19771 ARCHAEOLOGICALNOTES 111

more than 600 silver talents, equivalent to the tributereceived from the allies in a year and a half, a reallyenormous sum. The Athenians must have thoughthow to keep this outlay as small as possible, and theymust have known that to buy all the gold on the

open market would force the price up and up, per-

haps to 16:1 or even more. In a purchase as large asforty-four talents (weight) of gold, the difference be-tween I4:I and 15:1 was some forty talents of silver,itself a good deal of money, more than the tribute ofthe most heavily assessed state.

How can the difference between the normal market

price of 13/:1 known to Herodotus and Xenophonand the 14:1 which the Commissioners paid be ac-counted for? It is probably the cost of purifying the

gold. The Athenians did refine the metal in the Par-

thenos, the point being explicitly made by Perikleswhen he was enumerating the financial resources ofAthens.45 If it had not been refined, metal from dif-ferent sources would have had a different color.

Contrary to what some scholars have written, theancients did have processes for refining gold and evenelectrum. The coins would have been finely groundand the pieces heated with salt or sulphur in bone ash

cupels. The silver in the alloy would form silverchloride or silver sulphide and be absorbed by thebone ash.46 If a hundred pounds of Kyzikenes were

refined, theoretically the Athenians would recover the

forty-six pounds of gold in them and lose the fifty-four pounds of silver.47 At Herodotus's value of

13 :1, his would amount to a loss of nearly 90% ofthe value of the electrum. The actual process would

result, of course, in the loss of some gold as well, so

that we might suppose a total loss of ten percent ormore of the value of the Kyzikenes refined. The dif-ference in value between 13%:1 and i4:I is five

percent. But, if we assume that about half the goldcame from Persian darics, which were nearly puregold themselves, the overall loss would have been inthe region of five percent.

There can be no doubt that some gold in the statuecame from coins. IG IJ, 356 from, probably, 439/438,shows that the Epistatai acquired I10 (or more) Lyd-ian staters from a source other than that which sup-plied the bulk of the metal this year. Perhaps theywere the dedication of the Kalla[ischros] who is men-tioned in the summary of expenses.48

The accounts of the Commissioners of the Statueare too broken and the estimates of the amounts ofchrusion which Athens received too uncertain to provethat all of the gold which went into the Parthenoswas taken from the tribute. Perhaps some of it was

received as pious dedications. Nevertheless, I believe

we do have enough hard facts to show that a con-siderable part of the gold was once currency, perhapsas much as half or more.

Armed, then, with the gold of Asia which Athenshad received as tribute from her subject-allies, theParthenos was not only a monument to the technical

accomplishments and artistic conceptions of the sculp-tor Pheidias, she was also a literal monument to Athe-nian imperialism.

That the gold came from contemporary coinage mayprovide a clue to the ultimate fate of the statue. Shewas apparently last seen standing in her house in themiddle of the fifth century of the Christian Era.49

Since the mintage of gold solidi of the Emperor Theo-dosius II was somewhat larger than that of his prede-cessor Arcadius,50 t may well be that his coins derivedin part from the forty-four talents of refined gold whichonce covered the robe, the warlike arms, and sacredsnake of the virgin goddess.

SAMUEL EDDY

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

45 Thuc. 2.13.5.46 Plin. HN 33.60; 34.121; 35-183; Forbes, Technology

VIII, 177-81. Some sort of process was known as early as the

reign of Kroisos (Hdt. I.50).47 R. Bogaert, Le cours de statire de Cyzique aux ve et

ive si&cles avant J.-C., AC 32 (1963) 92 and n. 37, showsthat the average gold content of the Kyzikene was 46%.

48 IG 12,354+= G. Donnay (supra n. 2) 71-75; Meiggs-Lewis,GHI, no. 54.

49 N. Leipen, Athena Parthenos. A Reconstruction (Toronto

1971) 18.

50 J. Sabatier, Description gendrale des monnaies byzantines

(Leipzig 1930) 1, I02-104, 114-16.

THE HANDMADE BURNISHED WARE OFTHE LATE HELLADICIIICPERIOD:

ITS MODERN HISTORICALCONTEXT

An anomalous situation has arisen about Hand-made Burnished Ware because J.R.'s original article

(AJA 79 [1975] I7-32)-an extract from his Ph.D.thesis-did not make clear the history of the identifica-tion of the ware. Scholars reading the article may, as a

result, not be aware of the range of information onwhich it is based. Dr. Walberg in particular (personal

communication to E.F.) was quite unaware of thebackground when she wrote her comment (AJA 80[1976] 186) and the full background has not beenmade clear by J.R.'s reply.

In 1964 (a year when E.F. did not take part in the

excavations) the ware was found in considerablequan-tity at Mycenae in the LH IIIC wash levels retained

by the Citadel Wall. It was not, however, specificallynoted at that time, since the material of the year'sexcavation was bagged after only very brief studypending later detailed analysis. As soon as the detailedwork began in the summer of 1965, the presence ofthis unusual material alerted interest. At this pointE.F.

happenedto

paya brief visit to Athens and met

Mervyn Popham, similarly in town on a visit from

Lefkandi, bringing photographs of the group of potsfound on a floor in Trial IV-V, which included the

very similar handmade and burnished cup (Pophamand Sackett, Excavations at Lefkandi [1968] 18 and

fig. 34).




