How the Mines of Laurion Changed Ancient Athens and the World

A washing array astatine the mines of Laurion, Greece. Credit: Heinz Schmitz, CC BY-SA 2.5

Just sixty kilometers (37 miles) southbound of Athens, betwixt Thoricus and Cape Sounion, prevarication the mines of Laurion (Lavrio). Silver, copper, lead, and adjacent uncommon metals person been mined determination since the Late Neolithic Period, astir 3,200 BC, until mining unexpectedly ceased for centuries, until the sixth period BC.

The mines thrived during Greece’s Classic Period, with slaves doing the backbreaking mining of the metallic ores. The city-state of Athens exploited the mines to the full, and they became a captious root of revenue.

In the 4th and 5th centuries BC, the output of the Laurion mines represented 25 percent of the Athenian state’s yearly wealth.

According to Dr. Elias Konofagos, a chemic technologist and subordinate of the vigor committee of the Academy of Athens, the yearly gross gross from the metallic and pb from the Laurion mines unsocial astatine that clip was 920 talents.

The endowment (“talanton”) was an past portion of wide and a commercialized weight, and represented corresponding units of worth equivalent to these masses of a precious metal. The 920 talents were equivalent to 5,520,000 Attica drachmas, metallic coins each weighing 4.36 grams.

At the opening of the 5th period BC, the yearly output of the Laurion mines was an astounding 20,000 kilograms of metallic and 8,000 tons of lead. Archaeologists person discovered astir 200 antithetic mines and shafts successful the country dating backmost to the years 480 to 250 BC.

Slaves moving successful the Laurion mine. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Mines of Laurion helped decision Persian army

Themistocles, who was elected Archon of Athens successful 493 BC, had a expansive program to marque Athens a starring nautical power. He built a partition crossed Piraeus to support the territory of Attica, and soon the Port of Faliro was replaced by the larboard of Piraeus.

Themistocles ordered the operation of 200 agelong warships, called triremes, which required 170 rowers each, amounting to a full unit of 34,000 men. The funds utilized for the operation of these ships derived straight from the Laurion mines.

It is estimated that 20,000 slaves worked successful the mines to supply the metallic for the fleet that Themistocles demanded. The extremity effect of each their toil was that Athens became a fearsome naval power.

In 480 BC, the immense Persian service defeated the Greek forces astatine the Battle of Thermopylae, invading parts of Greece and threatening the Athenian state.

Themistocles projected that the Greeks debar warring connected onshore since they were outnumbered by the Persians.

He suggested alternatively that the Persian king Xerxes’ service beryllium stopped astatine sea. The Athenian-dominated Allied navy engaged the Persian fleet successful the adjacent straits of Artemisium; unfortunately, the Greeks suffered dense losses determination and retreated.

Themistocles insisted, however, that the Persian fleet beryllium brought to conflict again. After a subterfuge connected the portion of the sly Themistocles, King Xerxes was lured into a titanic conflict astatine sea, starring his Persian fleet into the constrictive Straits of Salamis.

Once wrong the constrictive waterway, the Persian ships simply could not maneuver, and they became wholly disorganized. The Greek fleet was past capable to snatch the accidental to obliterate Persia’s naval forces and people a decisive triumph for Athens and Greece.

It was September 22, 480 BC, a time which became 1 of the astir momentous dates successful the past of ancient Greece.

A twelvemonth later, without a Navy to enactment his troops, the Persian King Xerxes retreated to Asia, thereby everlastingly abandoning his ambition to conquer Greece.

Many historians judge that a Persian triumph would person stopped the advancement of past Greek civilization and, by extension, occidental civilization arsenic a whole, starring them to reason that Salamis is 1 of the astir important battles fought successful quality history.

The ships which helped to triumph the Battle of Salamis were paid for with metallic from the mines of Laurion, truthful it would beryllium harmless to accidental that these mines successful the confederate portion of Attica, and the miserable labour of the enslaved men there, contributed importantly to the redeeming of occidental civilization.

The affluent mines of Laurion stopped cognition lone successful the twelvemonth 1992, and today, its spot belongs to the Greek Ministry of Culture. The past mines which fig truthful mostly successful Western past are present portion of the Laurion Technological and Cultural Park.