would be held in no less odium amongst good men than is the usurer, did
they not take account of the risk he runs to secure his merchandise. In
truth, those who on this point speak abusively of mining for the sake of
detracting from its merits, say that in former days men convicted of crimes
and misdeeds were sentenced to the mines and were worked as slaves. But
to-day the miners receive pay, and are engaged like other workmen in the
common trades.
Certainly, if mining is a shameful and discreditable employment for a
gentleman because slaves once worked mines, then agriculture also will not be
a very creditable employment, because slaves once cultivated the fields, and
even to-day do so among the Turks ; nor will architecture be considered
honest, because some slaves have been found skilful in that profession ;
nor medicine, because not a few doctors have been slaves ; nor will any other
worthy craft, because men captured by force of arms have practised it.
Yet agriculture, architecture, and medicine are none the less counted
amongst the number of honourable professions ; therefore, mining
ought not for this reason to be excluded from them. But suppose we
grant that the hired miners have a sordid employment. We do not mean
by miners only the diggers and other workmen, but also those skilled in the
mining arts, and those who invest money in mines. Amongst them can be
counted kings, princes, republics, and from these last the most esteemed
citizens. And finally, we include amongst the overseers of mines the noble
Thucydides, the historian, whom the Athenians placed in charge of the
mines of Thasos.29 And it would not be unseemly for the owners themselves
to work with their own hands on the works or ore, especially if they themselves have contributed to the cost of the mines. Just as it is not undignified
for great men to cultivate their own land. Otherwise the Roman Senate
would not have created Dictator L. Quintius Cincinnatus, as he was at
work in the fields, nor would it have summoned to the Senate House the
chief men of the State from their country villas. Similarly, in our day,
Maximilian Caesar would not have enrolled Conrad in the ranks of the nobles
known as Counts ; Conrad was really very poor when he served in the mines
of Schneeberg, and for that reason he was nicknamed the " poor man " ; but
2*There is no doubt that Thucydides had some connection with gold mines ; he himself
is the authority for the statement that he worked mines in Thrace. Agricola seems to have
obtained his idea that Thucydides held an appointment from the Athenians in charge of
mines in Thasos, from Marcellinus (Vita, Thucydides, 30), who also says that Thucydides
obtained possession of mines in Thrace* through his marriage with a Thracian woman, and
that it was while residing on the mines at Scapte-Hyle that he wrote his history. Later
scholars, however, find little warrant for these assertions. The gold mines of Thasos—an
island off the mainland of Thrace—are frequently mentioned by the ancient authors.
Herodotus, vi., 46-47, says :—" Their (the Thasians') revenue was derived partly from
"their possessions upon the mainland, partly from the mines which they owned. They
"were masters of the gold mines of Scapte-Hyle, the yearly produce of which amounted to
"eighty talents. Their mines in Thasos yielded less, but still were so prolific that besides
** being entirely free from land-tax they had a surplus of income derived from the two
*'sources of their territory on the mainland and their mines, in common years two hundred
Äand in best years three hundred talents. I myself have seen the mines in question. By
"far the most curious of them are those which the Phoenicians discovered at the time
"when they went with Thasos and colonized the island, which took its name from him.
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