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Argentum, Silver

Argentum, Silver Page of 453 Argentum, Silver Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
72                                       AEGENTUM.
was extracted in two ways : either by the wet process, by pounding the minium in a bronze mortar with a pestle of the same metal; or by sublimation, being placed in an iron saucer (concha) inside an earthen pot, having a top carefully luted down: then a fire being made under the pot and blown with bellows, the quick­silver sweated in drops through the pores of the earthen covering, and was wiped off and collected.
The Stimmi or Stibium met with in the silver-mines, "like a froth, and bright white," of two kinds, the male and female— the former rougher and lighter and more sandy in texture, the latter brighter and full of cracks—was our Sulphuret and Oxide of Antimony, which, on the same account, the Germans term Spiess-glass or Rod-glass. It was in great use as a desiccative for ulcers, and also as a medicine for the eyes.
The oxide skimmed off the silver in the melting-pot, known by the Greek name Helcysma, also entered into the ancient pharmacopoeia as a caustic and desiccative.
The alloy in the Greek silver coinage generally appears to have been nothing more than the lead their refiners had not sufficient skill to get rid of: nevertheless the Athenian currency was distinguished above all the rest for its purity. Hence Xenophon's remark (Vect. iii.) as to the profit to be got upon the exportation of it to foreign countries : adding, what seems unaccountable, that the money of other states had no currency out of their own limits.3
The Romans adopted a silver currency at a somewhat late period of the Eepublic, not until 269 b.c. Their standard was as high as the Greek during the Eepublic and throughout the reign of Augustus. But, notwithstanding the vast supplies flowing into the treasury from Spain, the standard of the silver coin rapidly fell.4 Under Vespasian the alloy was 1/8, under the
Argentum, Silver Page of 453 Argentum, Silver
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