ARGENTUM. 123
discovered
it, 300 lbs. in weight per day. By Pliny's date the galleries had been
carried a mile and a half into the hill; the Aquitanian labourers,
working in spells (the time regulated by the burning of a lamp,
"lucernarum mensura"), pumped out the water without intermission by day
and night in such quantity that it formed a river. " The exhalations
from the mines are fatal to all animals, but more particularly to
dogs," which shows they were troubled with the choke-damp. Some ore,
called "Cru-daria," was found immediately below the surface. The
earlier miners used to dig no farther after they came upon alum (what
mineral is here meant is not easy to explain) ; but afterwards, having
discovered that copper lay beneath this, there was no limit to their
search.
Polybius
(xxxiv. 9) describes the silver-mines near New Carthage as of great
extent, occupying a circle of 400 stadia (40 miles), and employing
40,000 miners, who produced to the Roman treasury 25,000 drachmae per
day (or 260-5/12 lbs. Troy).* The ore was broken small, and sifted into
water ; the sediment again pounded, the operation being repeated five
times ; the residuum was then melted, and, " the lead being poured
off," the Silver was extracted pure. No silver-mines are mentioned by
any ancient writer as ever discovered in Italy: so the vast amount of
the metal required for the almost unlimited coinage of the wealthy
states of Magna Grecia (having no gold currency) and of Sicily must
have been obtained in exchange for their exports of grain.
