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Aurum, Gold

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108
AURUM.
very archaic type ascribed to Thebes, but their paucity and uncertain origin is such that their existence does not affect the question.
Philip's new gold coinage, the first that had appeared in Europe, obtained at once the most extensive circulation, owing to its purity and the vast convenience in trade of a representa­tive of value universally received as perfect in standard and in weight. It is curious to find how even barbarous nations pos­sessing gold, like the Gauls and some of the Illyrian chiefs, set about imitating these perfect works of the medallic art in rude pieces of their own.
After, however, the wealth of Persia and the tributes of the East had been made their own by the Macedonians, these Thracian mines fell into neglect. They had been worked so long that it is probable they were nearly exhausted before Thrace fell under the power of the Romans, who before that took place had taken from the Carthaginians the mines in the south of Spain, by far the most productive known to the ancient world. Of these, the mode of working them, and the reduction of the ore, Pliny has left the most exact details (xxxiii. 21), so interesting to the metallurgist as to deserve to be translated in full.
" Gold is procured in our quarter of the globe (we need not mention the Indian that is stolen from the ants, or the Scythian from the gryphons) in three different ways. As gold-dust from river-beds, as from the Tagus in Spain, the Po in Italy, the Hebrus in Thrace, the Pactolus in Asia, the Ganges in India; and no other sort is so pure, inasmuch as it has been thoroughly cleansed by the transit and the friction. In the second way, as dug up out of deep shafts in mines, or as picked up out of the fragments of undermined hills. Both methods must be described. Those who 'prospect' for gold, first of all take a 'Segutilum,' so the examination is called. This is a trough in which the sand is washed, and from what settles at the bottom a conjecture is formed. Occasionally by rare good luck the metal is found immediately on the surface, as lately in Dalmatia in Nero's reign, which produced as much as fifty pounds weight per day. When it is thus found in the very turf they call it ' Salutatium :'
Aurum, Gold Page of 453 Aurum, Gold
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