The circumstances of the find recall two anecdotes in the _Mirabiles Auscultationes_[771], located the one in Paionia the other in Pieria, in which, as in the Gyges story, we have the rains, the chasms, the find of gold and the taking of it to the palace. In at least one of the two cases the find is treasure trove, like the ring of Gyges. But the point to be noticed is that both Paionia and Pieria are in the famous mining district that played so great a part in the history of Athens and Macedonia. Considering the fame of the mines of Lydia it is natural to ask whether they did not play their part in the evolution of the story of the ring. Stories of men buried in the mines of Lydia did actually exist. One of them, told in the _Mirabiles Auscultationes_, shows that in Lydia, as in the region of Mt Pangaion and the river Strymon, chasms containing skeletons and gold were not unlikely to be mine shafts, and the power secured by their discoverer to be simply the power of suddenly and perhaps secretly acquired wealth. As to the date at which Tmolus was first mined nothing is known except that the workings were disused in the days of Strabo[772]. It may well have been worked from the earliest days of Gyges if, as is probable, he mined at Pergamus and further afield[773]. Lydians mining in those regions would hardly be neglecting mines so near their own capital, the more so as they would be directed to them by following the golden stream of the Pactolus[774]. In the face of these facts it is tempting to go one step further than Radet when he explains Gyges’ talisman as economic science. [Sidenote: Rings as money.] We are reminded of Byron’s description of the most potent of talismans: Yes, ready money is Aladdin’s lamp[775]. Gyges, it is true, discovered a ring, not a lamp, but the particular form of his talisman only adds point to the Byronic interpretation. Till somewhere about the time of the story rings were probably ready money in the literal sense of the phrase[776]. In many parts of the world before the introduction of a regular stamped coinage trade had been conducted largely by means of rings of specific weight[777].