HISTORY OF GOLD

Facts alone can't explain the mystique of gold, the desire for it that has helped shape mankind's destiny by leading to the rise and fall of empires, the discovery of new lands, and the opening up of vast countries. The world would be a lot poorer, both in wealth and story, without gold.

Although Helen of Troy's beauty was such that she was said to have the face that launched a thousand ships, it was Paris in legend who started the Trojan War. Asked to choose among three rival goddesses, he presented a golden apple to Aphrodite, who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife, instead of to Hera, who promised to make him king of Asia, or to Athena, who promised to make him victorious in battle.

His reward was Helen, despite the fact she was married to another man. So, as a result of his choice, we have the Iliad and the Odyssey. Then, there was Jason and his quest for the golden fleece, which incidentally may actually have been sable, a fur as rare and as precious as gold in those times. Or how about King Midas, who was supposed to turn everything he touched into gold? Or Croesus, king of Lydia, whose greed for gold resulted in his overthrow, not to mention the expression “rich as Croesus”?

The Bible is rich in its allusions to gold. There are the fabled mines of King Solomon, from which the gold came to build the temple in Jerusalem and perhaps to pave the city with gold as well, as the New Testament says it was.

Fairy tales are a “gold mine,” too. Jack climbed his beanstalk to -arch for the goose that laid the golden eggs, leading to another common expression and a moral about killing the goose. Rumpelstiltskin had his gold-spinning loom.