Lysander

Lysander, after settling these matters, sailed for Thrace himself, but what remained of the public moneys, together with all the gifts and crowns which he had himself received,—many people, as was natural, offering presents to a man who had the greatest power, and who was, in a manner, master of Hellas,—he sent off to Lacedaemon by Gylippus, who had held command in Sicily.[*](As Spartan general sent out to aid the Syracusans, he had turned the success of the besieging Athenians into disaster. See Plut. Nic. 18 ff.) But Gylippus, as it is said, ripped open the sacks at the bottom, and after taking a large amount of silver from each, sewed them up again, not knowing that there was a writing in each indicating the sum it held.

And when he came to Sparta, he hid what he had stolen under the tiles of his house, but delivered the sacks to the ephors, and showed the seals upon them. When, however, the ephors opened the sacks and counted the money, its amount did not agree with the written lists, and the thing perplexed them, until a servant of Gylippus made the truth known to them by his riddle of many owls sleeping under the tiling. For most of the coinage of the time, as it seems, bore the effigy of an owl, owing to the supremacy of Athens.

Gylippus, then, after adding a deed so disgraceful and ignoble as this to his previous great and brilliant achievements, removed himself from Lacedaemon. And the wisest of the Spartans, being led by this instance in particular to fear the power of money, which they said was corrupting influential as well as ordinary citizens, reproached Lysander, and fervently besought the ephors to purify the city of all the silver and the gold, as imported curses. The ephors deliberated on the matter.

And it was Sciraphidas, according to Theopompus, or Phlogidas, according to Ephorus, who declared that they ought not to receive gold and silver coinage into the city, but to use that of the country. Now this was of iron, and was dipped in vinegar as soon as it came from the fire, that it might not be worked over, but be made brittle and intractable by the dipping.[*](Cf. Plut. Lyc. 9.2 ) Besides, it was very heavy and troublesome to carry, and a great quantity and weight of it had but little value.

Probably, too, all the ancient money was of this sort, some peoples using iron spits for coins, and some bronze; whence it comes that even to this day many small pieces of money retain the name of oboli, or spits, and six oboli make a drachma, or handful, since that was as many as the hand could grasp.