The Silver of Laurion
The Mines That Funded Athens' Golden Age

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Geology of Attica and the Hidden Veins
• Chapter 2 Early Exploitation: From the Bronze Age to the Tyrants
• Chapter 3 The Strike at Maroneia: The Discovery of 483 BCE
• Chapter 4 Themistocles and the Great Naval Debate
• Chapter 5 Building the Wooden Wall: From Silver to Triremes
• Chapter 6 The Miracle at Salamis and the Vindication of Silver
• Chapter 7 Funding the Fleet: The Economics of the Athenian Hegemony
• Chapter 8 Silver and the Birth of Radical Democracy
• Chapter 9 The Topography of Laurion: Pits, Shafts, and Workshops
• Chapter 10 Deep Underground: Engineering and Extraction Techniques
• Chapter 11 Washing and Smelting: The Metallurgy of Cupellation
• Chapter 12 The Human Cost: Slavery in the Athenian Dark Below
• Chapter 13 Concessions and the State: The Law of the Poletai
• Chapter 14 Speculators, Citizens, and the Mining Elite
• Chapter 15 Financing the Golden Age: The Acropolis and Pericles
• Chapter 16 The Owls of Athens: Standardizing the Aegean Currency
• Chapter 17 War Clouds: Laurion during the Archidamian War
• Chapter 18 The Occupation of Decelea and the Great Slave Flight
• Chapter 19 Depletion, Defeat, and the Emergency Bronze Coinage
• Chapter 20 Post-War Recovery: Xenophon and Ways and Means
• Chapter 21 The Fourth-Century Boom: Lycurgus and Civic Renewal
• Chapter 22 Silver in the Courts: Litigation and Property Disputes
• Chapter 23 The Shadow of Macedon and the Exhaustion of the Veins
• Chapter 24 Slag, Spoil, and the Roman Aftermath
• Chapter 25 Rediscovery: From 19th-Century Industrial Mining to Modern Archaeology