BOOK X. 487 



silver a fierce fire, and requires on that account a vigorous blast, places the 

 bellows very much inclined, in (^rder that, when the silver has melted, it 

 may blow into the centre of the test. When the silver bubbles, he presses the 

 nozzle down by means of a small block of wood moistened with water and 

 fastened to an iron rod, the outer end of which bends upward. The silver 

 melts when it has been heated in the test for about an hour ; when it is 

 melted, he removes the live coals from the test and places over it two billets 

 of fir-wood, a foot and three palms long, a palm two digits wide, one palm 

 thick at the upper part, and three digits at the lower. He joins them 

 together at the lower edges, and into the billets he again throws the coals, 

 for a fierce fire is always necessary in refining silver. It is refined in two or 

 three hours, according to whether it was pure or impure, and if it is impure it 

 is made purer by dropping granulated copper or lead into the test at the 

 same time. In order that the refiner may sustain the great heat from the fire 

 while the silver is being refined, he lets down an iron door, which is three feet 

 long and a foot and three palms high ; this door is held on both ends in iron 

 plates, and when the operation is concluded, he raises it again with an iron 

 shovel, so that its edge holds against the iron hook in the arch, and thus the 

 door is held open. When the silver is nearly refined, which may be judged 

 by the space of time, he dips into it an iron bar, three and a half feet 

 long and a digit thick, having a round steel point. The small drops of silver 

 that adhere to the bar he places on the brass block and flattens with 

 a hammer, and from their colour he decides whether the silver is sufficiently 

 refined or not. If it is thoroughly purified it is very white, and in a bes there 

 is only a drachma of impurities. Some ladle up the silver with a hollow iron 

 implement. Of each bes of silver one sicilicus is consumed, or occasionally 

 when very impure, three drachmae or half an uncia'"-. 



The refiner governs the fire and stirs the molten silver with an iron 

 implement, nine feet long, a digit thick, and at the end first curved toward 

 the right, then curved back in order to form a circle, the interior of which is a 

 palm in diameter ; others use an iron implement, the end of which is bent 

 directly upward. Another iron implement has the shape of tongs, with 

 which, by compressing it with his hands, he seizes the coals and puts them on 

 or takes them off ; this is two feet long, one and a half digits wide, and the 

 third of a digit thick. 



When the silver is seen to be thoroughly refined, the artificer removes 

 the coals from the test with a shovel. Soon afterward he draws water in 

 a copper ladle, which has a wooden handle four feet long ; it has a small 

 hole at a point half-way between the middle of the bowl and the edge, through 

 which a hemp seed just passes. He fills this ladle three times with water, 

 and three times it all flows out through the hole on to the silver, and slowly 

 quenches it ; if he suddenly poured much water on it, it would burst asunder 

 and injure those standing near. The artificer has a pointed iron bar, three 



^^A drachma of impurities in a bes, would be one part in 64, or 984.4 fine. A loss of ;i 

 sicilicus of silver to the bes, would be one part in 32, or about 3.1% ; three drachmae would 

 equal 4.7%, and half an uncia 6.2%, or would indicate that the original bullion had a fineness 

 in the various cases of about 950, 933, and 912. 



