176 NEW WORKING OF MINES. CHAP. VU. 



appear to have been induced again to allow of 

 mines being worked by private individuals \ It 

 was in this way that, under Trajan, the gold 

 mines of Dacia were worked, stimulated and 

 directed as they wete by his collegium aura- 

 riorum. Valentin ian the First proceeded still 

 farther 2 ; and allowed to any person who was 

 disposed to undertake such operations to dig 

 for gold and silver, on condition of paying a 

 fixed proportion of the metal so obtained. Thus, 

 Count Felix appears to have had some extensive 

 works in the Pyrenees, the traces of which, as 

 will be hereafter noticed, display an almost royal 

 expenditure 3 . By the last edict the Romans 

 were enabled to open new mines, or to maintain 

 those already in operation with more facility and 

 to a greater extent ; and from that, combined 

 with other institutions, some new gold mines 

 were opened in Dalmatia, Istria, and Dacia, in 

 the first centuries after the establishment of the 

 emperors in their despotic power. 



As the mines, both belonging to the emperors 

 and to private individuals, required appropriate 

 laws and regulations, as well for the protection 

 of the several persons interested in them, as for 



1 It appears by Strabo, lib. xii., that some traces of the 

 working of mines by private persons were to be seen in the 

 early periods of the republic. 



a Gebhardi. Hungar. Geschichte, p. i. sec. 7- 



3 Essai sur la Mineralogie des Monts Pyrenees, p. 243. 



