Silver or Ships? Athens Makes a Choice

The Silver of Laurium

1Every society faces scarcity: people want more than their resources can provide. When a community chooses one use for a resource, it gives up the next-best use. Economists call that next-best use the opportunity cost of the choice. A city with only so much silver, timber or labor cannot have everything it wants at once.

2In 490 BCE, an army sent by the Persian Empire landed at Marathon, near Athens, and was defeated by the Athenians and their allies. Many Athenians expected the Persians to return. Athens was also at war with Aegina, a rival island city with a strong navy, only a short sail away.

3In 483 BCE, miners at Laurium, in the southern part of Attica, struck a rich new vein of silver. The silver belonged to the city. Many citizens wanted to share it out, so that each man would get a little money. A leader named Themistocles argued instead for spending it on triremes, fast warships each rowed by about 170 men.

4Warships were costly. Attica had few tall trees, so Athens had to bring ship timber from lands to the north, such as Macedonia. Each ship also needed a crew, and many of the rowers were poorer citizens who were usually paid for their work.

5In 480 BCE, King Xerxes of Persia invaded Greece with a huge army and fleet. At the Battle of Salamis, Greek ships, many of them Athenian, defeated the Persian fleet in a narrow strait. After the victory, Athens kept building ships and became the leading naval power in Greece. Writers who later told the story of the silver did not tell it in the same way.

Account A: adapted from a translation of Herodotus's Histories

The Athenians had a great amount of money in their treasury from the mines at Laurium, and they were about to share it out, ten drachmas to each man. Themistocles persuaded them to give up this plan and to build two hundred ships with the money, for the war against Aegina. These ships were not used for the war they were built for, but they were ready when Greece needed them.

Account B: adapted from a translation of The Constitution of the Athenians

In 483 BCE, the mines at Maroneia, in the district of Laurium, were discovered, and the city gained 100 talents from working them. Some advised that the silver be shared among the people, but Themistocles stopped this. He told the city to lend the money to the 100 richest Athenians, one talent to each. If the city liked how they spent it, the city would pay the cost; if not, it would take the money back. With this money each man built a trireme, and with these 100 ships the Athenians fought at Salamis.