instance, the prosperous silver mines in Spain which belonged to Carthage[1] ; sometimes the}’ were the property of great and illustrious families, as were the Athenian mines in Mount Laurion[2].
When a man owns mines but is ignorant of the art of mining, then it is advisable that he should share in common with others the expenses, not of one only, but of several mines. When one man alone meets the expense for a long time of a whole mine, if good fortune bestows on him a vein abundant in metals, or in other products, he becomes very wealthy; if, on the contrary, the mine is poor and barren, in time he will lose everything which he has expended on it. But the man who, in common with others, has laid out his money on several mines in a region renowned for its wealth of metals, rarely spends it in vain, for fortune usually responds to his hopes in part. For when out of twelve veins in which he has a joint interest
- ↑ There can be no doubt that the Carthaginians worked the mines of Spain on an extensive scale for a very long period anterior to their conquest by the Romans, but whether the mines were worked by the Government or not we are unable to find any evidence.
- ↑ The silver mines of Mt. Laurion formed the economic mainstay of Athens for the three centuries during which the State had the ascendency in Greece, and there can be no doubt that the dominance of Athens and its position as a sea-power were directly due to the revenues from the mines. The first working of the mines is shrouded in mystery. The scarcity of silver in the time of Solon (638-598 B.C.) would not indicate any very considerable output at that time. According to Xenophon (Essay on Revenue of Athens, iv., 2), written about 355 B.C., they were wrought in very ancient times.The first definite discussion of the mines in Greek record begins about 500 B.C., for about that time the royalties began to figure in the Athenian Budget (Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 47). There can be no doubt that the mines reached great prosperity prior to the Persian invasion. In the year 484 B.C. the mines returned 100 Talents (about 83,700 oz. Troy) to the Treasury, and this, on the advice of Themistocles, was devoted to the construction of the fleet which conquered the Persians at Salamis (480 B.C.). The mines were much interfered with by the Spartan invasions from 431 to 425 B.C., and again by their occupation in 413 B.C.; and by 355 B.C., when Xenophon wrote the Revenues,exploitation had fallen to a low ebb, for which he proposes the remedies noted by Agricola on p. 28. By the end of the 4th Century, B.C., the mines had again reached considerable prosperity, as is evidenced by Demosthenes’orations against Pantaenetus and against Phaenippus, and by Lycurgus’prosecution of Diphilos for robbing the supporting pillars. The domination of the Macedonians under Philip and Alexander at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 3rd Centuries B.C., however, so flooded Greece with money from the mines of Thrace, that this probably interfered with Laurion, at this time, in any event, began ’the ’decadence of these mines. Synchronous also was the decadence of Athens, and, but for fitful displays, the State was not able to maintain even its own independence, not to mention its position as a dominant State. Finally, Strabo, writing about 30 B.C. gives the epitaph of every mining district reworking the dumps. He says (ix., i, 23): The silver mines in Attica were at first of importance, but
(Demetrius), and taken from Callisthenes and other writers, who did not clear them from false notions respecting the Halizones; for exam pie, that the wealth of Tantalus and of the Pelopidae was derived, it is said, from the mines about Phrygia and Sipylus; that of Cadmus from the mines of Thrace and Mount Pangaeum; that of Priam from the gold mines of Astyra, near Abydos (of which at present there are small remains, yet there is a large quantity of matter ejected, and the excavations are proofs of former workings); that of Midas from the mines about Mount Bermium; that of Gyges, Alyattes, and Croesus, from the mines in Lydia and the small deserted city between Atarneus and Pergamum, where are the sites of exhausted mines.(Hamilton’s Trans., Vol. iii., p. 66). In adopting this view, Agricola apparently applied a wonderful realism to some Greek mythology for instance, in the legend of Midas, which tells of that king being rewarded by the god Dionysus, who granted his request that all he touched might turn to gold; but the inconvenience of the gift drove him to pray for relief, which he obtained by bathing in the Pactolus, the sands of which thereupon became highly auriferous. Priam was, of course, King of Troy, but Homer does not exhibit him as a mine-owner. Gyges, Alyattes, and Croesus were successively Kings of Lydia, from 687 to 546 B.C., and were no doubt possessed of great treasure in gold. Some few years ago we had occasion to inquire into extensive old workings locally reputed to be Croesus’mines, at a place some distance north of Smyrna, which would correspond very closely to the locality here mentioned.
