Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

450 ELECTRUM. ELECTRUM.
(Demosth. c. Leptin. p. 462, &c.) OrDhans, though plural is almost alone sufficient to prove that the
exempt from liturgies, were obliged to pay the pro- meaning is, with amnber beaods. (Od. xv 460, xviii.
perty-tax, as we see in the instance of Demosthe- 295.) In the former passage the necklace is
nes, who was one of the leaders of the symmoriae brought by a Phoenician merchant. The other
for ten years (c. Jlid. p. 565; compare Isaeus, passage is in the description of the palace of Meap. Dionys. Isaeus, p. 108; or Oirat. Gracec. vol. vii. nelaus, which is said to be ornamented with the
p. 331, ed. Reiske). Even trierarchs were not brilliancy of copper (or bronze) and gold, and
exempt from paying the Eartoopa themselves, electrum, and silver, and ivory. (Od. iv. 73.)
although they could not be compelled to pay the Now, since the metallic electrum was a mixture of
irpoeLariopa. (Demosth. c. Polycl. p. 1209, c.Phae- gold with a small portion of silver, the enumeranipp. p. 1046.) It seems that aliens were likewise tion of it, as distinct from gold and silver would
subject to it, for the only instance we have of any seem anlmost superflLous; also, the supposition that
exception being made is one of aliens. (Marm. it means amber agrees very well with the subseOxon. ii. xxiv.; Bickh, Publ, Econ. p. 538.) quent mention of ivory: moreover, the order of
For further information concerning the subject the words supports this view; for, applying to
of the EsoqPopd, see the fourth book of Bbckh's them the principle of parallelism, - which is so
Public Economy of Athens; Wolf, Prolegyonena common in early poets, and among the rest in
icn Leptin.; Waclhsmuth, Hellen. Alterlh. vol. ii. Homer, - and remembering that the Homeric line
p. 98, 2d edit.; Hermann, Pol. Ant. of GrCeece, is really a distich divided at the caesura, we have
~ 162. [L. S.] gold and anmber very aptly contrasted with silver
ELAEOTHE'SIUM. [BALNEAE, p. 190.] and ivory:
ELAPHEBO'LIA (EXaarpl~l6Ma), the greatest XpvCov' 7JEKTPO se
festival in the town of Hyampolis, in Phocis, which Xa &pyvpov r' dEo avTros.
was celebrated in honour of Artemis, in commemoration, it is said, of a victory which its inhabitants In this last passage, Pliny understood the wood
had gained over the Thessalians, who hllad ravaged to mean the metallic electrum (H. N. xxxiii. 4.
the country and reduced the Phocians in the s. 23); but his authority on the meaning of a pasneighbourhood of the town nearly to the last ex- sage of Homer is worthless.: and indeed the Latin
tremity. (Plut. De ATul. Virt. p. 267; Paus. x. writers seem generally to have understood the
35. ~ 4.) The only particular which we know of word in the sense of the metal, rather than of
its celebration is, that a peculiar kind of cake amber, for which they have another word, sac(e'Aepos) was made on the occasion. (Athen. xv. cismnzm. In Hesiod's description of the shield of
p. 646.) These cakes were, as their name indi- Hercules (v. 141), the word again occurs, and
cates, probably made in the shape of a stag or we have gy!pSU12, and whiite ivory, and electrums,
deer, and offered to the goddess. The festival of connected with shining gold and cyanus, where
the elaphebolia was also celebrated in many other amber is the more natural interpretation; although
parts of Greece, but no particulars are known. here again, the Roman imitator, Virgil, evidently
(Etymol. Magn. s. v.'EXaqbr/o klci.) [L. S.] unaderstoold by it the metal. (Aen. viii. 402.) For
ELAPHEBO'LION. [CALE.NDARIUM.] the discussion of other passages, in which the
ELECTRUM (jXeKrTpos and jxEIscpov), is meaning is more doubtful, see the Lexicons of
used by the ancient writers in two different senses, Liddell and Scott, and Seiler and Jacobitz, and
either for anzbesr or for a mixture of metals corm- especially Buttmann's Mlfythologus, Supp. I. Uelber
posed of gold and silver. In the former sense, it das Electron, vol. ii. pp. 337, fell.
does not come within the scope of this work-, ex- The earliest passage of any Greek writer, in
cept as a substance used in the arts, and also on which the word is certainly used for the metal, is
account of the difficulty of deciding, with respect in the Antiqone of Sophocles (1038), where mento several of the passages in which the word tion is made of Indian gold and the electrum o.f
occurs. in which of the two senses it is used. If Sardis, as objects of the highest value. There can
we could determine which was first known to the be little doubt that what is here meant is the pale
Greeks, the mineral or the metal, the subject gold deposited by certain rivers of Asia Minor,
would be simplified; but the only means we have especially the Pactolus, which contained a consi-'of determining this question is -the slight internal derable alloy of silver. We have here an example
evidence of a few passages in Homer. If, as we of inative electrlzz; but the compound was also
shall endeavour to show, those passages refer to made artificially. Pliny states that when gold
amber, a simple-explanation of the twofold use of contains a fifth part of silver, it is called electrz;z
the word suggests itself; namely, that the word that it is found in veins of gold; and that it is
originally meant amber, and that it was afterwards also made by art: if, he adds, it contains more
(applied to the mixed metal, because its pale yellow than a fifth of silver, it becomes too brittle to be
colour resembled that of amber. Etymologically, malleable. Among its properties are, according to
the word is probably connected with AXEKTop, the the same author, the reflecting the light of a lamp
sun. the root-meaning being brilliant. (Pott, Fty/z. more brightly than silver, and that a cup of native
lForsch. pt. i. p. 237: this derivation was known to electrumn detects the presence of poison by certain
Pliny, H. N. xxxvii. 2. s. 11: Buttmann's deriv- signs. One cannot but suspect that the last state.
ation from A"ircn, to drawz, is objectionable both on ment is copied from some Greek writer, who made
philological and historical grounds: the attractive it respecting amber, on account of the similar propower of amber, when rubbed, is said, and no perty that used to be attributed to opal. (Plin.
doubt correctly, to have been discovered long after IH.. xxxiii. 4. s. 23, with Harduin's note; comp.
the mineral was first known.) ix. 50. s. 65; Paus. v. 12. ~ 6.) Isidorus also disThe word occurs three times in Homer; in two tinguishes the three kinds of electrum, namely,
cases where mention is made of a necklace of gold, (1) amber; (2) the metal, found in its natural
bound, or held together, kXEt'rpoisbv, where the state; (3) the metal artificially composed of tihre