METALLUM
METALLUM (
μέταλλον). The Greek
word bears only the meaning of
mine; the Latin
means either a mine or its product, mineral or metal.
I.
Metals in Antiquity.--Of the precious metals--gold, silver,
electrum, and copper--we have spoken under AURUM,
ARGENTUM, ELECTRUM, and
AES It remains to speak briefly of the commoner metals.
（
α) Iron (
ferrum,
σίδηρος). Although iron ore is common in
all countries, yet the difficulty of smelting and manufacturing iron is so
great that it is one of the latest of metals to come into use in the course
of history. Of this fact the Greeks were aware, and the knowledge moulded
the traditions recorded in Hesiod's
Works and Days, in which
the heroic age is represented as an age of bronze:
τοῖς δ᾽ἦν χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δέ τε οἰ_κοι, χαλκῷ
δ᾽εἰργάζοντο, μέλας δ᾽οὐκ ἔσκε σίδηρος (50.150). The
transition from this age of bronze to an age when iron was commonly employed
was very gradual, and took place in various countries at different times. In
Greece it was in progress in the Homeric age. In the
Iliad
swords are often made of iron (18.34,
μὴ λαιμὸν
ἀποτμήξειε σιδήρῳ), but it is specially in use for
ploughshares and other agricultural implements (
Il. 23.826): the axle too of Hera's chariot is of iron (
Il. 5.722). But defensive armour, as well as
the heads of axes and points of spears and arrows, were in the Homeric age
still made of bronze; and the epithet
πολύκμητος which is applied to iron shows that it was still
worked with difficulty. Many writers have supposed that the word
κύανος in Homer stands for steel; but it has
been proved by Lepsius that this is incorrect, and that it really means
either lapis-lazuli or an artificial imitation of that mineral, and the view
of Lepsius has been confirmed by the discovery of a frieze of alabaster and
glass (
θριγκὸς κυάνολο) in one of the
rooms of the very early palace at Tiryns (Schliemann,
Tiryns,
p. 287).
From this time the use of iron gradually spreads. In one passage of the
Odyssey (
9.391))
knowledge is shown of the process of hardening iron by repeated plunging
when hot in water [
LACUS]; in
Hesiod's
Shield of Herakles, that hero is represented as
arming himself with a helmet of steel,
κυνέη
ἀδάμαντος. In the age of Croesus, Glaucus of Chios is said
to have discovered how to solder iron (
σιδήρου
κόλλησις). After that, iron was used in Greece not only for
arms and utensils, but also for works of art. But we must beware of
supposing that the use was at this time universal. Herodotus says that the
Massagetae in his time used no iron, and that the Aethiopians in the army of
Xerxes used arrows with points of stone, and lances with points of horn. The
general use of iron passed slowly westward and northward, and took several
centuries to reach the Gauls, Britons, and Germans, as is proved by the
long-continued prevalence of bronze as a material for weapons in cemeteries,
such as that of Hallstadt.
The nature of the process by which an iron age succeeded in various countries
an age of bronze is well discussed by Mr. John Evans in the Introduction to
his work on
Ancient Bronze Implements.
Herodotus and Pausanias give us a clear record of this process as regards
Greece. In the time of Croesus, during a war with Tegea the Spartans found
bones supposed to belong to Orestes under a smithy used for the manufacture
of iron weapons (
Hdt. 1.67). Commenting on this
story, Pausanias (
3.3,
6) remarks that the arms of the heroic age preserved in Greek
temples, such as the spear of Achilles and the sword of Memnon, were of
bronze, but that by the time of Croesus iron was generally used for weapons.
We are told by Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 14.139）
that when Porsena had conquered the Romans, he forbade them to use iron
except for agricultural purposes; which would indicate that they were
already accustomed to use arms of iron. In their earlier encounters with the
Gauls the Romans are said to have had the advantage of using swords of a
superior quality to those of their enemies, which bent at every stroke, and
had to be straightened by the foot. Mr. Evans, however, considers that these
inferior weapons were made, not of bronze, but of soft iron. The Cimbri who
invaded Italy in the time of Marius had, according to Plutarch, not only
swords and javelins, but even breastplates of iron. In Caesar's time the
Gauls were expert in working iron, and even made chains of it for their
ships (
B. G. 3.13).
In Greece the cities of Chalcis and Lacedaemon were celebrated for their iron
goods. The sword-blades of Chalcis were praised in Aeschylus
[p. 2.167](Plut.
de Def. Orac., 43): weapons
and agricultural implements of steel were largely made at Lacedaemon (Steph.
Byzant. s. v.). Not unfrequently iron was used as a material for works of
art: Alcon made an iron statue of Herakles, and iron vessels were dedicated
in the temple of Mars Ultor at Rome (
Plin. Nat.
34.141). But as a rule the Greeks did not excel in the working of
iron, but imported goods in this metal fiom nations at a lower level of
civilisation. Most noted were the Chalybes of Pontus, known to Aeschylus
(
Prom. V. 714) as
σιδηροτέκτονες
Χάλυβες: Xenophon (
Xen. Anab.
5.5,
1) says they lived entirely by
iron-work. The manufacture of arms and armour was carried to a high point of
perfection by the people of Cyprus, who furnished Alexander the Great with a
sword, and Demetrius Poliorcetes with a cuirass of wonderful power of
resistance. In the time of Pliny (
Plin. Nat.
34.145) the best iron came from China, the second best from
Parthia. Iron was found in large quantities in the island of Elba
(Aethalia), and thence exported to the neighbouring Populonia, where it was
worked. Toletum in Spain was celebrated even in Roman times for
sword-blades, and the toreutic art was applied to iron at Cibyra.
We are told that a currency of iron was in use at Sparta in antiquity, and
this story has become more credible since the discovery of iron coins of
Argos and other Peloponnesian cities. The people of Byzantium also used iron
coins (Pollux, 9.78).
The extreme variation from place to place in the value of metals may be shown
from the statement of the author of the
Periplus R. M. (p.
59), that on the Arabian shore of the Red Sea gold passed as equivalent to
three times its weight of copper, half its weight in iron, and one-tenth its
weight in silver.
（
β) Lead (
Plumbum nigrum;
μόλυβδος). An account of the sources and
uses of lead in antiquity will be found in Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 34. § § 156 ff.). Its easiness to
work and its imperishable nature made it useful for certain purposes, as for
coffins and pipes. Its great value in medicine as a cooling remedy was also
fully recognised. But it was scarcely used for purposes of art.
（
γ) Tin (
Plumbum
album). Few metals were in antiquity more widely used or more
indispensable than tin. The implements and arms of the bronze age, the chief
means of living during many centuries, contain almost invariably a
proportion of tin. Tin (
κασσίτεπος) was in
the Homeric age largely used for the decoration of arms. Yet tin is a rare
metal, and not found in the Levant. Herodotus (
3.115) gives as its source islands of the Western Sea, the
Cassiterides, generally identified with the Scilly Isles, where tin is
abundant. Diodorus derives the metal from the British coast. But Pliny
(
34.156) rejects these accounts as
fabulous, and says that it came from Gallaecia and Lusitania in Spain. The
likeness of the Greek word
κασσίτερος to
the Sanskrit
kastîra has induced some
moderns to think that the chief source of tin was the coast of India. In any
case it is probable that the purveying of it to the peoples of South Europe
was an employment of the Phoenicians, and one of the chief sources of their
wealth.
（
δ) Stannum. Pliny (
34.159) says that when mixed ores of silver
and lead are melted together, the first liquid product is stannum, the
second silver. Stannum was used for plating bronze vessels, for mirrors,
horse-trappings and other purposes.
（
ε) Quicksilver (
argentum
vivum;
ὑδράργυρος, ἄργυρος χυτός). The use of
quicksilver in gold mining was known to the ancients (Pliny,
Plin. Nat. 33.99). It was commonly produced
artificially out of cinnabar (Dioscor.
de M. M. 5.110).
（
ζ) Zinc. The metal zinc does not seem to be
mentioned by ancient writers, the word
σποδός (Diosc.
de M. M. 5.85) meaning only oxide
of zinc. But in the analysis of Roman coins zinc is found in considerable
proportions. It is present in some of the pieces of
aes
grave found at Vicarello; and in the large coins of yellow
brass, sestertii and dupondii, issued by Augustus and his successors, the
proportion of zinc to copper is sometimes more than 1 to 3 (Mommsen,
Röm. Münzwesen, p. 763).
（
η) Nickel. This metal was used for coins by
some of the Greek kings in India in the 3rd century B.C. (
Numismatic
Chronicle, 1868, p. 305).
The passages in ancient writers bearing on the subject of metals and minerals
are collected and translated into German by Lenz in his
Mineralog. d.
alten Griechen und Römer, 1861. [
P.G]
II.
Working of Mines in Antiquity.--The subject of the
working of mines in ancient times is obscure and difficult. It is only with
reference to the silver and lead mines of Laurion in Attica, and the gold
and silver mines in Spain, that we have any considerable data. Boeckh in his
Dissertation on the Silver Mines of Laurion (printed as
an appendix in the English translation of his
Public Economy）
discusses fully all that is known about the former. Xenephon,
de Vectigalibus, 4, 2 (a chief source of information
on the subject), says that the mines had been worked from time immemorial.
The mines were worked by means of shafts and adits, and by the removal of
whole masses, so that supports alone (
μεσοκρινεῖς) were left standing. The processes of fusion carried
on in furnaces on the spot seem on the whole to have been of the same
imperfect kind as those carried on in other ancient mines. This is proved by
the fact that at the present time a very handsome revenue is obtained by a
French company from the working of the
scoriae
of the mines of Laurion by modern processes. The ores were smelted by means
of charcoal (
ἄνθρακες), the chief supply
of which came from Acharnae. The state was sole proprietor of the mines; but
they were never worked directly by the state, nor did the state ever let
them for a term of years, like other landed property. Portions of them were
sold or demised to individuals, with the reservation of a perpetual rent,
and these leases were transferred from one person to another by inheritance,
sale, and every kind of legal conveyance. The sale of the mines (that is, of
the right of working them) was managed by the Poletae (
POLETAE); this right was
purchased at an appointed price, in addition to which the possessor paid the
twenty-fourth part of the net produce as a perpetual tax. The purchase-money
was paid direct to the state; the metal-rents were, in all probability, let
to a farmer-general. The income derived from the
[p. 2.168]mines of course depended on a variety of circum-stances, and consequently
the revenue fluctuated. In the time of Socrates it was less than at the time
when Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet with the proceeds
of the mines instead of dividing them. Boeckh estimates the annual revenue
at that time as 33 1/3 talents. Citizens and isoteleis could alone possess
mines. The number of owners was considerable. The common price of a share in
a mine was a talent, or a little more. The labour was performed by slaves
either belonging to the mine-owners or hired: great capitalists, such as
Nicias, who owned 1000, bought slaves and let them out to the mine-owners at
a drachm
per diem. There was a special mining
law (
μεταλλικὸς νόμος) and a peculiar
course of legal procedure in cases relating to mines (
δίκαι μεταλλικαί), which in the time of Demosthenes were
annexed to the monthly suits. [
EMMENOI DIKAI]
Herodotus (
6.46) tells us that the gold mines of
Scapte Hyle brought the Thasians an annual income of 80 talents, and the
mines on Thasos itself a sum not so great.
Diodorus Siculus (5.36), Strabo (
iii. p.146
if.), and Pliny (
H. N. xxxiii.) are our chief sources of
information for the working of mines in Roman times. Diodorus (
5.36) describes the elaborate system of shafts and
galleries in the mines in Spain, the methods of draining them by cross
drains and the use of the pump invented by Archimedes, and the miseries of
the workmen, who were slaves and criminals (
metallum was one of the regular penalties for lesser offences).
Much gold was obtained in Lusitania and Gallicia by washing the river-sands
in wicker baskets or cradles, just as placer gold is worked in modern times.
Strabo (
iii. p.146) describes the process
of refining the gold found in nuggets (
πάλαι,
βοῦλοι). The nuggets were first refined by means of an astringent
clay containing vitrol (
στυπτηριώδης γῆ):
the metal thus obtained was called
electrum, a
mixture of silver and gold. This was again subjected to a refining process,
the silver was burnt away (
ἀποκαίεσθάι）
and the gold remained. On account of its soft nature gold was melted by
means of a fire of chaff (
ἄχυρος), the
heat of coal (
ἄνθραξ) being considered too
strong and wasteful. Gold dust was obtained by washing in pits dug in the
beds of the streams (
ἐν δὲ ρείθροις σύρεται καὶ
ἐν σκάφαις, ἢ ὀρύττεται φρέαρ, ἡ δὲ ἀνενεχθεῖσα γῆ
πλύνεται). They built tall furnaces for smelting the silver, that
the fumes, which were considered baleful, might be carried high into the
air.
Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 33.66) describes three
methods of gold mining, and the elaborate method by which water for the
washings was brought in a series of pipes or troughs along the precipitous
sides of the mountains in Gallicia. By this method of washing some authors
said that 20,000 lbs. of gold were obtained annually in Asturia and
Gallicia.
Under the Roman Empire, the mines and quarries of all kinds, whether in the
imperial or senatorial provinces, were worked for the emperor, and formed
part of the revenue for the Fiscus, and also for the emperor's private
purse, although under the Republic mines of all kinds belonged to private
persons. Sometimes even under the Empire private persons owned saltworks and
quarries. Thus Herodes Atticus worked the quarries of Pentelic marble.
Quarries in some cases belonged not to the Fiscus, but to the emperor's
private purse (
patrimonium).
There was no central organisation for working the mines, but each mine or
mining district was worked separately under an overseer (
procurator, e.g.
procurator
aurariorum), probably himself a slave; sometimes the emperor let out
the mines to a company of
publicani. The
revenue was managed by departments, consisting of a
commentariensis, a
dispensator,
a
tabularius, and an
arcarius. Officers such as a
tribunus
militum, a
centurion, or
decurion, were detailed to superintend the carrying
on of the operations. Under the Empire the workmen were slaves, free
labourers, soldiers, or criminals. In the latter case there was a military
station always near the mines. (Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung,
2.252
seqq.) [
VECTIGALIA]
[
W.RI]
