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100
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A DRUM.
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the beams, the ceilings, and the pillars, entirely plated over with scales of
gold and of silver; the tiles being all of the latter metal. Of these
the greatest part had been scraped off at the time of the Macedonian
invasion, and under Seleucus and Antigonus; yet still the temple of
Aene retained its gold-plated columns and silver tiles; and a few
ingots of gold and several of silver were piled up within it. All these
" scrapings" were got together for the Royal mint, and fell little
short of 4000 talents.
Agatharchides
of Cnidos has left a most valuable description of the manner in which
the mines in Egypt were worked, and the metal refined, in his own times
(the reign of Ptol. Philometor, B.C. 181) ; but these operations had
been carried on in the same district for many centuries before the
establishment of the Greek power (Diod. Sic. iii. 13).
"
In the furthest part of Egypt, on the confines of Arabia and Ethiopia,
there is a place containing many mines of gold, which is procured by
numerous workmen with vast hardship and expense. The soil being
naturally black, and containing many veins and strata of marble,
extremely white, and thus distinguished from the circumjacent
materials, the superintendents set over the mine-works prosecute the
search with a multitude of labourers. For the kings of Egypt collect
those condemned for crimes, captives taken in war, persons ruined by
false accusations, and therefore sentenced to imprisonment, sometimes
alone, sometimes with all their families, and condemn them to the
mines, thereby at once inflicting punishment upon the sentenced, and
extracting vast profits out of their labours. Now these convicts, in
great numbers, all in fetters, are kept at the works, not merely all
day, but throughout the night also, getting no intermission of labour,
and carefully guarded against escaping. For guards are set over them of
foreign soldiers, and speaking a different language, so that it is
impossible for the prisoners to corrupt any of their guards by speech,
or by motives of humanity. The ground containing the gold they first
heat with long-continued fire, and so render full of fissures, before
they apply manual labour to it; but the rock that is soft and capable
of yielding to moderate labour is cut down with the tools stonecutters
use by myriads of these poor wretches. The entire operation is directed
by the
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