BOOK I. 23 



would be held in no less odium amongst good men than is the usurer, did 

 they not take account of the risk he runs to secure his merchandise. In 

 truth, those who on this point speak abusively of mining for the sake of 

 detracting from its merits, say that in former days men convicted of crimes 

 and misdeeds were sentenced to the mines and were worked as slaves. But 

 to-day the miners receive pay, and are engaged like other workmen in the 

 common trades. 



Certainly, if mining is a shameful and discreditable employment for a 

 gentleman because slaves once worked mines, then agriculture also will not be 

 a very creditable employment, because slaves once cultivated the fields, and 

 even to-day do so among the Turks ; nor will architecture be considered 

 honest, because some slaves have been found skilful in that profession ; 

 nor medicine, because not a few doctors have been slaves ; nor will any other 

 worthy craft, because men captured by force of arms have practised it. 

 Yet agriculture, architecture, and medicine are none the less counted 

 amongst the number of honourable professions ; therefore, mining 

 ought not for this reason to be excluded from them. But suppose we 

 grant that the hired miners have a sordid employment. We do not mean 

 by miners only the diggers and other workmen, but also those skilled in the 

 mining arts, and those who invest money in mines. Amongst them can be 

 counted kings, princes, republics, and from these last the most esteemed 

 citizens. And finally, we include amongst the overseers of mines the noble 

 Thucydides, the historian, whom the Athenians placed in charge of the 

 mines of Thasos. 29 And it would not be unseemly for the owners themselves 

 to work with their own hands on the works or ore, especially if they them- 

 selves have contributed to the cost of the mines. Just as it is not undignified 

 for great men to cultivate their own land. Otherwise the Roman Senate 

 would not have created Dictator L. Quintius Cincinnatus, as he was at 

 work in the fields, nor would it have summoned to the Senate House the 

 chief men of the State from their country villas. Similarly, in our day, 

 Maximilian Caesar would not have enrolled Conrad in the ranks of the nobles 

 known as Counts ; Conrad was really very poor when he served in the mines 

 of Schneeberg, and for that reason he was nicknamed the " poor man " ; but 



28 There is no doubt that Thucydides had some connection with gold mines ; he himself 

 is the authority for the statement that he worked mines in Thrace. Agricola seems to have 

 obtained his idea that Thucydides held an appointment from the Athenians in charge of 

 mines in Thasos, from Marcellinus (Vita, Thucydides, 30), who also says that Thucydides 

 obtained possession of mines in Thrace through his marriage with a Thracian woman, and 

 that it was while residing on the mines at Scapte-Hyle that he wrote his history. Later 

 scholars, however, find little warrant for these assertions. The gold mines of Thasos an 

 island off the mainland of Thrace are frequently mentioned by the ancient authors. 

 Herodotus, vi., 46-47, says : " Their (the Thasians') revenue was derived partly from 

 ' their possessions upon the mainland, partly from the mines which they owned. They 

 ' were masters of the gold mines of Scapte-Hyle, the yearly produce of which amounted to 

 ' eighty talents. Their mines in Thasos yielded less, but still were so prolific that besides 

 ' being entirely free from land-tax they had a surplus of income derived from the two 

 ' sources of their territory on the mainland and their mines, in common years two hundred 

 ' and in best years three hundred talents. I myself have seen the mines in question. By 

 ' far the most curious of them are those which the Phoenicians discovered at the time 

 ' when they went with Thasos and colonized the island, which took its name from him. 



