Iron money
Attested elsewhere in ancient sourcesSparta issued no silver coinage in the classical period, and Plutarch explains the absence as deliberate: Lycurgus withdrew gold and silver and substituted iron, then ruined the iron with vinegar while hot so that it could not be reworked into anything useful.
The consequence Plutarch draws is practical. A sum worth little required a cart to move it and a storeroom to keep it, so theft was pointless and bribery conspicuous. He adds that the luxury trades left the city, since there was nothing to be paid in.
Iron spits, obeloi, have been excavated from Greek sanctuaries and are generally understood as pre-coinage value tokens, which gives the tradition a physical anchor even if Plutarch's moral framing is his own.
Sources
- Plut. Lyc. 9
References are to the standard divisions of the ancient texts, not to any one edition.
Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer
A dragon is the reason the 300 died. Leonidas used the magic of the gods to bind Kalaxes beneath Taygetus, and the price was his life and his men's. Sixty-two years later a seven-year-old of the agoge falls into the dragon's crypt and inherits the unpaid balance.
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