Siphnos – North from Artemonas – Mangana & Aghios Sostis

The gold and silver of Siphnos

  It is not known for sure where the gold mines of Siphnos were, though it seems most probable that they were in the vicinity of the ‘White Tower’ in the island’s southeast corner. The silver mines were more abundant; the greatest concentrations being near Aghios Sostis on the north east coast and further inland in the area to the north of the island’s highest summit of Prophiis Eli­as, where silver and lead were both extracted. Siphnos supplied raw silver to Aegina which, as the first Greek city to issue coinage in the mid 6th century bc, had considerable demand for the metal. Siphnos herself soon followed, minting coins of no table refinement, with the head of Apollo wearing a fillet, on the obverse. This was at a time before either Athens or Corinth were yet producing their own. Herodotus is our main source of information about the mines; writing in the 5th century bc, he estimated that the Siphnians were ‘richer than any other of the island peoples’. Their mines were so productive that they dedicated a tenth part of their output to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, building a splendid treasury there in 526/525 bc. The building was in the form of a small Ionic temple in antis: its opulent decorations—a sculpted and painted frieze in Parian marble which ran round all four sides—can still be seen in the museum at Delphi. Herodotus adds that, once the gift to Apollo had been made, the Siphnians ‘then distributed the remainder of their output amongst themselves’—a feat which required a remarkable degree of organisation and civic stability.
   Anxious to know whether this good fortune could last, the Siphnians questioned the Delphic Oracle who replied that danger only threatened them in the guise of an ‘attack with wood’ and a ‘herald in red’; this would come when ‘the market-place and council chamber in Siphnos turned white’ (the agora and prytaneion had just been rebuilt in white Parian marble). The ancient wooden boats of this period were generally caulked with beeswax which was strongly coloured with red ‘miltos’ (see under Kea above pp. 25–26). When a detachment of disaffected Samians, who had joined Spartan forces in a failed attack against their own lead er, Polycrates, arrived in such boats on Siphnos having abandoned their campaign, and proceeded to request a loan of ten talents of silver, the Siphnians—perhaps recalling the oracle and fearing some trap—refused the request. The Samians began plundering the island, got the better of the local population and subsequently extorted a payment of 100 talents from them. One hundred talents is equivalent to 600,000 drachmae, i.e. between 2,600 and 2,700kg of silver: at a roughly estimated purchasing power for the 6th century bc drachma, this would be a sum equivalent to well over 12 million dollars today. Even allowing for inaccuracy in this calculation and in Herodotus’s account, this must have been a sobering moment for the Siphnians who had perhaps come to take their prosperity for granted. Alongside such a turn in their fortunes, the mines began to be worked out and to yield ever diminishing quantities of ore in the subsequent centuries. No wonder then that the tithe promised to the sanctuary at Delphi diminished proportionately. Hence the stories, which Pausanias heard and recorded, of the islanders’ deceit, in which they sent gilded gifts in lieu of the solid gold gifts of yore.
   It is interesting that the earliest of the many fortified towers, which are such a notable characteristic of Siphnos, date from just after the episode with the Samians recounted by Herodotus. Perhaps the Siphnians were closing the stable-door after the horse had bolted, but it is interesting that they go on building towers in increasing numbers during the period in which the production of metal-ore was already be ginning to disappear. This suggests that the towers cannot solely be related to the mining activity. (See ‘Ancient Towers’ below.)