THE MINING OPERATIONS OF THE ROMANS. 389 



sores to several publicani. Plutarch told them that there were in his time through- 

 out Spain and elsewhere gold and silver mines still left in the hands of private 

 individuals which had made those who possessed them as rich as Croesus had 

 become by his famous silver mines. However, the mines of all kinds, which in 

 the time of the republic were left in the hands of private enterprise, were by the 

 more powerful emperors seized, in part to swell the public revenue, and in part 

 to replenish the imperial private purse. Thus, as time went on, almost all the 

 rich and large mines fell into the hands of the head of the Roman State. Among 

 the imperial possessions must, therefore, be numbered the goldmines in Dalmatia, 

 the silver mines in Pannonia and Dalmatia, the gold mines in Dacia, as well as 

 the tin and lead, not to speak of the gold and silver mines, in Britain. To these 

 might be added the iron mines in Noricum, in Pannonia, and in Gallia Lugdun- 

 ensis, and the famous copper mines in Cyprus, and those of Bsetica in Spain. 



The reverend gentlemen here gave a minute and detailed account of all that 

 is known as to the manner in which smelting-furnaces first came to be used and 

 afterward developed. A curious side-light was, he said, thrown upon the whole 

 subject of mining by the unraveling of the somewhat novel information to be 

 gleaned from the ancient inscribed bronze tablets that were discovered in 1876 

 in a long since disused ancient Roman mine in Portugal. In conclusion, he said 

 there were two distinct ways in which State mines were worked by the ancient 

 Romans. Either they were let by the Roman revenue officers to the publicani, 

 or they were kept in the possession of the State and were handed over to the 

 procurator. In the first case, the/«<5'/fira«/ themselves undertook to pay the revenue, 

 a fixed sum for the mines they farmed, while they themselves exacted such taxes 

 from the owners or workers of those mines as to leave themselves a margin of 

 profit for their trouble. In the the second case, the imperial procurators either 

 worked the mines themselves at the risk and profit of their masters, or they let 

 them out to companies or individuals, who paid them a certain rent fixed in pro- 

 portion to the number of men employed in them. The procurator, if he worked 

 the mine himself, had under him a slave, who acted as director of the w.ork; a 

 foreman, whose office it was to test and pass the work done; and an engineer, who 

 had charge of the mechanical contrivances. li\h.e procurator \tt the woxk of the 

 mine out to others, it was either to a single contractor or to a company, who, 

 before the law, had the status oi publicani, and were often given that name. The 

 publicani, however, properly so-called, were mere tax-collectors; the former, or 

 the contractors, were real administrators of the mines. In either case, however, 

 that is, whether the procurator himself worked or whether he let out the mine, he 

 had all the accounts of the commercial enterprise to keep in an office established 

 for the purpose. In it the procurator had under him a clerk or register-keeper, a 

 steward or disburser, a collector or caster of accounts, and a treasurer. Officers 

 and soldiers were stationed to guard the mine, and to keep order among the 

 workmen. For this purpose, either a tribune, a centurion, or a decurio was de- 

 tached from his regular corps, and stationed in the mining district, either in a 

 position of independence, or under the command of the procurator. The work- 



