A silver strike made Athens rich, and bankrolled the construction of the fleet they used to defeat the Persians at Salamis.
... and Athens, instead of becoming a colony of Persia or the estern boundary of the Persian Empire, became the Athens that became the engine of the modern west -
Perhaps the trajectory of freedom set in motion by this silver mine - in so far as the soldiers in Themistocles’ command received their pay from it - continued in its way all the way to the founding of America
Herodotus, whose History’s subject is the Persian Wars, made it clear that - in the same way that the un-reciproal enmity between the two sides of the Aegean had existed since time immemorial in his own time, so to would it continue - perhaps forever
Un-reciprocal - he introduces his history with the premise of the Persian Wars being unexplainable enmity directed at the west from the people on east side of the Aegean - enmity perhaps institutionalized in the cultural blueprint of the people east of the Aegean - an enmity not reciprocated by the west
Yet the west would fall under attack perhaps forever so long by way of this dynamic
Themistocles saved the west in the Battle of Salamis
And the West is still fighting the Persian Wars til today
Similiarly, Mexican and Andean silver mines bankrolled spain for two centuries.
Gold strikes also bankrolled Muhhammed.
The roman defeat of the Thracians bankrolled Rome with Thracian gold for much 2nd century AD.
There are probably other examples around.
The US government has 8 tones of gold in storage. In the 1940 & 50’s the US government had 20 tons of gold in storage. The US went off the gold standard in 72 because of the hemmorage of US gold to back the dollar.
The Chinese are currently rapidly building up their gold deposits.