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108
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AURUM.
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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 :'
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