Other ways to examine the finances behind the birth of Classical Greece

• Main Author: Wood, Jonathan R
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2023
• Subjects: Democracy; economy; figurines; lead isotopes; lead pollution; silver; Greenland
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10159871/1/Wood_Other%20ways%20to%20examine%20the%20finances%20behind%20the%20birth%20of%20Classical%20Greece.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10159871/

Although the birth of Classical Greece is often attributed to the constitutional reforms of Cleisthenes (508/507 BCE), the achievement of an economically minded government under the Peisistratid tyrant Hippias (527–510 BCE) potentially paved the way by advancing Athenian silver for exportation in international trade. It is proposed here that new silver technology, which initiated the transition from acquiring silver from ‘dry’ silver ores to silver-bearing lead ores, was introduced to Greece during the time of the Peisistratids (561–510 BCE). Massive exploitation of silver-bearing lead ores at Laurion in Attica, which later financed the construction of a war navy, appears evident in the lead pollution records of Greenland ice, lead isotopic analyses of sixth-century BCE Attic silver coins and late Iron Age Levantine hacksilver, and is reflected in the numbers of lead votive figurines at sanctuaries in Sparta. Against the backdrop of the threat of war with Persia and an imminent Spartan invasion which resulted in the overthrow of Hippias (510 BCE), it is considered that a political transition occurred because Greece was both geologically and politically disposed to adopt this labour-intensive silver technology which helped to initiate, fund and protect the radical social experiment that became known as Classical Greece.