Silver that Became a Wooden Wall

The Silver Owls

The head of the goddess Athena on the obverse, her bird the owl on the reverse. The Athenian silver tetradrachm was simply called the "owl." The silver came from the mines of Laurion, and Kroll writes that this design was established near the end of the sixth century BC. In the fifth century BC, owls were favored throughout the eastern Mediterranean.

The Wealth of the Mines and the Wooden Wall

The story goes back to 483-482 BC, when a new vein of silver was discovered in the mines. There were calls to distribute the state surplus, which the *Constitution of the Athenians* records as one hundred talents, among the citizens. According to Herodotus, this would have amounted to ten drachmas per person.

Themistocles opposed this and argued for using the money to build ships instead. The intended opponent was the neighboring island of Aegina, a rival at sea. In 480 BC, as the Persians advanced, the Oracle at Delphi proclaimed, "a wall of wood shall protect you and your children." The elders interpreted this as the thorn hedge that had once surrounded the Acropolis, but Themistocles interpreted it as the ships. The people adopted his interpretation, and those ships were already in the harbor.

The League Treasury and the Temple

After the war, the Greek city-states formed a league to prepare for future Persian threats. The common treasury was moved from Delos to Athens. Eventually, Pericles used that money to build the Parthenon. According to Plutarch, a political opponent shouted in the assembly, "With money contributed for the war, we are adorning our city."

Pericles replied: The allied cities contribute only money, not horses, ships, or soldiers. As long as Athens undertakes the fighting on their behalf, it has no obligation to account for how the money is spent. Thucydides writes that at the start of the Peloponnesian War, six thousand talents of silver coin were still stored on the Acropolis.

A Rower's Daily Wage

The war, which began in 431 BC, continued with naval battles. The ships were powered by rowers hired for wages. In 407 BC, Cyrus, the son of the Persian king, brought five hundred talents to the Spartan admiral Lysander.

By agreement, the daily wage for a rower was three obols. Spartan envoys argued that if this were raised to one drachma, Athenian rowers would desert their ships. When asked at a banquet what he desired, Lysander replied that he wished for one obol to be added to the daily wage. The Athenian owl was favored throughout the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth century BC and became the most widely imitated coin of antiquity.