The Mining of The Romans in Spain PDF

The Mining of the Romans in Spain
Author(s): T. A. Rickard
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 18 (1928), pp. 129-143
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/296070
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THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN.
By T. A. RICKARD, A.R.S.M. D.Sc.
(Plate xii.)
During the Republican Period a number of mining districts were

exploited in the territory that the Romans annexed. Mines in
conquered countries that had belonged to the former rulers became
the property of the Roman people, and others were acquired by
confiscation or forced purchase from private owners. But the in-
dustry was not entirely a State monopoly: on the contrary, a number
of mines remained in private hands, - more particularly those yielding
the base metals-copper, lead and tin-whereas those that yielded the
precious metals-gold and silver-were retained by the State. Under
the Empire the mines became a special object of bureaucratic con-
cern as mineral wealth had been the spoil of conquest, so in
due course it became the prize of usurpation.2
The mining region that contributed most to the imperial
treasury was southern Spain-the ancient land of Tarshish and
the home of the Turdetani, which in Roman days became known as
Baetica and is to-day the Spanish province of Andalusia. The prophet
Ezekiel refers to the ' silver, iron, tin and lead' that came to the
Tyrian market from Tarshish.3 Strabo says: 'Of the various riches
of the afore-named country [Turdetania] not the least is its wealth in
metals, by which any one might be interested and surprised. Of
metals, in fact, the whole country of the Iberians is full, although it
is not equally fertile and flourishing throughout, especially in those
parts where the metals most abound. It is seldom that any place is
blessed with both those advantages, and seldom, too, that the different
kinds of metals abound in one small territory. Turdetania, however,
and the surrounding districts are so far superior in this respect that the
best will in the world cannot express their excellence in words ; for
gold, silver, copper and iron of similar. quality have not hitherto been
discovered in any part of the world.' - This was the land of Tartessus,
the Tarshish of Solomon's day. It is not usual, as Strabo intimates,
for a mining region to be rich also in agricultural resources, but
California and British Columbia may be cited as modern exceptions.
As regards variety of mineral products, Turdetania finds a peer in
I .trabo, iii, 2, 10; p. 148 C. 3 Ezekiel xxvii, 12.

2e.g. Suet. Tit. 49, 2. 4 Strabo, iii, 2, 8; p. 146 C.
130 THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN.
Colorado-a region that is remarkable for its yield not only of metals,
but also of coal and oil.
Diodorus, using information probably derived from Posidonius,
records that the Romans obtained great wealth by buying large
numbers of slaves and using them to win minerals in Spain. He says 1:
'They make openings in various places and go deep into the earth to
search for the silver- and gold-bearing strata. By means of pits which
they sink they penetrate for several furlongs not only horizontally but
in depth; and, cxtending their subterranean galleries in different
directions, sometimes transvcrse, sometimes oblique, from the bowels
of the earth they raise the ore which yields their gain. If one com-
pares these mines with those of Attica, one notices a great difference.
Those who work the latter, in spite of the large outlay they incur,
often fail to make a profit and even lose their capital. . . . But those
who exploit the mines of Spain find their hopes fulfilled and' pile up
enormous wealth from their operations. For, successful as were their
first attempts, thanks to the mineral richness of the ground, veins
even more dazzling, which teem with silver and gold, are constantly
being discovered: the whole of the surrounding soil is riddled in
every direction with a network of metal. Sometimes, however, when
the workings penetrate deeply, they encounter streams of water that
flow underground; but the force of these they overcome by diverting
the flow through transverse drains. Certainty of profit breeds a
determination to carry their various plans to completion. Most
striking of all is the way in which they drain off the streams of water
by using the so-called Egyptian screws an invention made by
Archimedes of Syracuse when visiting Egypt. The water is raised by
a succession of these screws to the outlet of the gallery; and thus the
bottom of the mine is dried and the conduct of the operations made
easy. This machine, which is a masterpiece of ingenuity, with the
application of moderate effort can lift an astonishing mass of water
and will easily discharge on the surface the whole volume of such
streams as these.'
This description refers to the operations of the Romans; for both
Posidonius and Diodorus wrote at a time when the mines of Spain
were still highly productive. Diodorus, of course, possessed no
technical knowledge, so that his account lacks precision ; but it is one
of the longest and most interesting descriptions of mining to be found
in classical literature. The screw-pump was used by the Egyptians in
raising water from the Nile for irrigation, and Archimedes is supposed
to have seen it in operation when in that country about 220 B.C.
Even to-day the fellaheen of the Delta can be seen using it, in the
outward form of a wooden cylinder three or four feet long, to transfer
water from one ditch into another. Several of these Archimedean
pumps have been found in southern Spain. Part of one found in
1 Diodorus, v, 36 and 37.
THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN. 13 1
the neighbourhood of the Sotiel mine, in the Rio Tinto district, and
presented to the Institute of Archaeology, Liverpool, by Dr. G. A.
Auden is shown on plate XII.1 The best example was discovered
in the Roman workings of the Centenillo mine, in the Linares
district. 2 This spiral pump or cochlea, as Vitruvius3 calls it,
consists of a wooden core, eight inches in diameter, into which a
helical copper vane or screw-thread, an eighth of an inch thick, is
fixed, this copper screw in turn being attached to the longitudinal
laths of the container, or pump-barrel, a cylinder zo inches in diameter
and I4 feet long. The attachments are made by means of copper lugs
and rivets. Each end of the barrel was provided with an iron point
that pivoted in a socket set in timber. The pump was placed on the
floor of an incline, where it was actuated by a slave, who applied his
feet to cleats on the outside of the barrel about mid-way, while his
hands rested on a horizontal pole, as is illustrated in a wall-painting
uncovered recently at Pompeii4 and in the painted terra-cotta figurine
in the British Museum, probably from Alexandria (plate XII). 5
These machines were clumsy and of low efficiency; for each pump
lifted the water only six feet vertically, and this was reduced t^o
five feet by the loss between discharge and intake, so that twenty
of them were needed to raise the water a hundred feet. But, such.
as they were, they enabled the Romans to extend their workings
into wet ground.
The watershed of the Baetis or Guadalquivir, more particularly
the mountainous country between its southern bank and the sea, was
the most highly mineralised region known to the ancient world. Its
resources in valuable metals attracted not only the Phoenicians, but
perhaps even the earlier Aegeans. The Phoenicians, at first trading
with the natives, ere long seized the mines, compelling the Iberians
to work for them, until they, in turn, were ousted by the Romans.
These ancient mining operations extended eventually over a distance
of two hundred miles, from the eastern end of the Sierra Morena to
the coast at Huelva. There to-day the Rio Tinto, one of the largest
copper mines in the world, is being exploited by an English company,
which acquired the property from the Spanish government in I873,
on the site of workings from which the Romans obtained, not copper
indeed, but the precious metals. As Strabo remarks, 'certain of the
1 The photograph was very kindly taken by Vitr. v, I2 and x, 8.

Prof. Droop, who also sends the following measure- 4Illustrated London News, December 17, 19Z7.
ments. Circumference of central pole *605 m.; 5 Another similar one in Cairo Museum is
projection of screw-blades from pole *o6 mi.; published by C. C. Edgar in Bull. de la Soc. arch.
thickness of screw-blades o3 m. The screw-blades d'Alexandrie, no. 7, 1905, p. 44; who also quotes
are built up of small slabs approximately 003 m. Catal. of Egyptian Antiquities in the possession of
thick, from *OI m. to *017 m. wide and 03 long, F. G. Hilton Price (London, 1897), p. 451, fig. 3797,
glued together vertically. The distance between for a restoration showing the method of working a
the blades, top to top, is .17-.19 m. screw-pump.
2 T. A. Rickard, Institution of Mining and
Metallurgy, November, 1927.
I32 THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN.
copper mines are called gold mines, which would seem to show that
formerly gold was dug from them.' 1 This is not an uncommon ex-
perience. At Butte in Montana, for example, the veins that are now
celebrated for their yield of copper were worked at first, when the
workings were shallow, for the gold and the silver they contained. At
surface, and near it, the ore is decomposed, and the copper is removed
to a lower horizon by natural leaching, so that the less soluble metals
remain in a concentrated condition. At Rio Tinto the work of
excavation was performed by the Romans on a big scale and over a
long period ; for the evidence indicates that a hill was converted into
a valley in the course of their operations. On the faces of the old
diggings can still be seen distinctly the signs of fire-setting, the ancient
method of cracking hard rock by burning wood against it and then
throwing water on the hot surface.
Only 35 miles from Rio Tinto is Palos, and 6o miles southward is
Cadiz. The dust of the barren hills through which the Guadalquivir
flows is rich in more than metals; for it is steeped in the life-blood
of the countless slaves that have toiled there from time immemorial.
In I845, in a mine named the Potosi, near Guadalcanal, were dis-
covered the skeletons of I7 Celtiberians, together with their stone
hatchets, clay utensils and the bones of sheep. 2 In the northern
workings of the Rio Tinto mine was found a water-wheel, to which
were hanging fragments of the ropes by which the slaves kept it in
motion. In a neighbouring mine, the San Domingos, were found
nine such water-wheels (141 feet in diameter) in series along a gallery
that inclined at about 40?, the water being raised successively by one
wheel after another until it reached a place where natural drainage
was available. 3 In recent years a number of such water-wheels have
been unearthed in the old workings at Rio Tinto.4
To-day, when looking down into the big open-cuts at Rio Tinto,
the visitor can recognise the old Roman levels by their small size, 3 to
4 feet high, and their arched roofs. Many of them are wider. at the
top than at the bottom, so as to leave room for the miners' shoulders,
which have smoothed away the chisel marks. In the shafts, which
are circular and only 2 I to 3 ft. in diameter, one can see the notches
that were cut for a foothold when ascending or descending. 5 Thirty
wooden water-wheels have been unearthed at various times in the
old Roman workings. One of them has been reproduced in a model,
which is to be seen in the little museum at the mine; it is 14- ft. in
diameter and carries 24 boxes, or buckets, each I 5 in. long, 7 in.
broad and 5 in. deep. The parts were held together by wooden tree-
i Strabo, iii, 2, 8; p. 146 C. 4 Robert E. Palmer, 'Notes on some Ancient

2 M. L. de Launay, ' L'industrie du cuivre dans Mine Equipments,' Institution of Aining and
Metallurgy, I9Z7.
la region d'Huelva,' Annales des Mines, Series 8,
I889, Xvi, 427. 5 Rickard, Engineering and Mining Journ., July
3 W. G. Nash, The Rio Tinto mine, its history
2nd, 1927. and
romiiance, 1904, p. 35, with illustrations.
THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN. 133
nails. The axle was made of bronze, containing 9137 per cent. of
copper and 6 65 per cent of tin, together with 1-47 per cent. of lead.
When loaded with water, the wheel required %6o pounds to balance
it. A slave worked it in treadmill fashion. The water was raised
twelve feet by each wheel, and the wheels vere usually placed in pairs
alongside one another.
At Rio Tinto there is an enormous amount of ancient slag, most of
which is believed to be of Roman making, though some of it may be
the product of the earlier Carthaginian operations. The railroad from
the mines to Huelva, a distance of 52 miles, is ballasted witlh this
ancient slag, of which there are about 20,000,0oo tons. Usually it is
assumed that the slag resulted from copper-smelting operations,
because that is the principal metal now extracted from the great
masses of pyrite that are being exploited by the English company.
Analyses of the slag, however, shov only o I 5 per cent. of copper, wlhich
seems too low for any rudimentary metallurgic operations. On the
other hand, the slag averages one per cent. of lead, together with 2'
ounces of silver and 13 grains of gold per ton. The high iron content
and low proportion of silica do not suggest a copper-smelting operation,
whereas the lead in the slag and the lead in the oxidised ore indicate
the probability that the superficial parts of the ore-bodies were worked
by the ancients in search of the precious metals, for the recovery of
which the lead sufficed as a collecting agent in the smelting furnace
That the argentiferous lead was refined on the spot is proved by the dis-
covery of litharge and other refinery refuse at Rio Tinto. The bottoms
of small charcoal-furnaces have been unearthed among the slag heaps,
most of which are found adjoining the lodes that were capped by the
greatest thickness of gossan, or oxidised mineral, from wlich also the
present company has obtained its principal output of gold and silver
ores. No extensive old stopes or horizontal workings have been found
in the unoxidised pyrite, and such ancient workings as penetrate into
it appear to have followed tongues of oxidation that reached down-
ward from the gossan.
The silver mines of Spain were one of the incentives to the
second Punic War: not only did Hannibal draw money for hlis
campaigns from tlhem, but the Romans counted the mines among
the choicest fruits of their conquest. Victorious generals adorned
their triumphs in Rome with great displays of bullion: in 200 B.C.
L. Cornelius Lentulus brought home 43,000 pounds of silver and
2,450 of gold,2 and in 194 the elder Cato produced 25,000 pounds
of silver ingots and 1,400 of gold, in addition to a large sum of coined
money.3 Livy and Appian record many other displays of plunder,
but those already cited are enough to indicate the pride of the Roman
commanders in bringing home the spoil of Spain.
1 ibid. Junle 4th, 1927- 3 Livy, xxxiv, 46, 2.
2Livv, xxxi, 20, 7.
Pliny, who had himself been procurator in Spain, says: 'Silver

is found in nearly all our provinces, but the finest is that of Spain,
where it occurs, like gold, in barren soil and even in the mountains.' 1
The discovery of metals among the mountains is in accord with the
modern understanding of ore-deposits, which are sought where the
crust of the earth has undergone elevatory movement and where,
consequently, structural and thermal activities have been intense.
In regard to the barren soil, to which Pliny also refers, it may be said
not unfairly that the operations of the miner disfigure the face of
nature and diminish its fruitfulness. In ancient days the refuse
thrown from the mines into the rivers of Andalusia had the effect of
silting them. At the same time the demand for the charcoal needed
to smelt the ore led to the destruction of the forests, so that the
rainfall diminished, thereby causing aridity and desolation. Such
also have been the effects of mining in later days in other parts of
the world.
In enumerating the sources of gold in his day Pliny mentions that
it is found in the river Tagus,2 and he adds that ' the mountains of
Spain, in other respects arid and sterile and productive of nothing
whatever, are constrained to be fertile by supplying this precious
commodity.' 3 Here again we have the reference to the finding
of gold in ground that is unfertile: the mining engineer to-day
knows that the reason why the precious metal is not uncommonly
obtained in the waste places of the earth is mainly that in agricultural
regions the rock is covered with soil, and that the conditions favourable
to the making of soil most often exist where the effects of vulcanism
and thermal activity are lacking. Pliny makes another reference to
the gold of the Iberian peninsula, saying that ' according to some
accounts Asturia, Gallaecia and Lusitania annually produce 20,000
pounds weight [say ?1,300,000] of gold, Asturia contributing the
major part. Indeed there is no part of the world that for centuries
has maintained such a continuous productivity in gold.' 4 He does not
refer to the mining of gold in Baetica, but we have evidence that
the superficial enrichments of the Rio Tinto lode were exploited for
gold and silver. Diodorus, on the authority of Posidonius, says,5
apparently of Baetica, that it had ' wonderful mine sof copper, gold,
and silver.' He goes on to add that ' some of the private persons who
work the silver mines take out a Euboic talent in three days ; for the
whole soil is full of dust clotted together and shining, so that one
would wonder at the nature of the ground and the energy of the
workers.' This is, of course, the rhapsody of one unversed in mining
affairs, but it suggests the reputation that southern Spain enjoyed in
those days. Moreover, the masses of native silver taken out of the
'N.H. xxxiii, 96. 4 ibid. 78.

2 ibid. 66. 5 Diodorus, v. 36.
3 ibid. 67.
mines near Linares in modern times are such that the winning of a
Euboic talent (26. i96 kg.), even in three days, is wholly credible.
The most explicit reference to the mining of the Romans in this
part of the world is to be found in the writings of Polybius. 1 He says
' There are very large silver mines about twenty stades from New
Carthage, extending to a circuit of 400 stades, in which 40,000 men
are continually employed, who produce for the benefit of the Roman
people 25,ooo drachmae [about f900] a day. It would take too
long to describe the whole process of working them, but I may
mention that the alluvial soil containing the silver ore is first broken
up, and sifted in sieves held in water; that then the deposit is again
broken, and being again filtered with running water, is broken a third
time. This is done five times ; the fifth deposit is smelted, and, the
lead having been run off, pure silver remains.' This passage, written
about 145 B.C. is preserved by Strabo.2 A yield of 90oo worth of
silver from the operations of 40,000 men would be considered a
meagre return in the United States to-day, when the wages to be
paid to such a force of workers would be about f40,000; and even
with the use of slave labour, at 2-id. per diem for maintenance, the
profit, if any, must have been relatively small.
Gold and silver, however, were not the only metals that were
produced in Baetica. Another important metal was lead, concerning
which Pliny has a good deal to say. He remarks that it is extracted
' with great labour ' in Spain. The emphasis on the effort to obtain
it is a just observation ; for all the mining operations in that day were
performed with an excessive expenditure of time and muscle. Pliny
tells us that the lead was used for making pipes and sheets. He says
that it was obtained ' either from its own native ore, where it is pro-
duced without the intermixture of any other substance, or else from
an ore which contains it in common with silver, the two metals being
fused together.' 3 A lead ore entirely devoid of silver is uncommon
the Romans knew how to separate the silver from the lead in a rough
way by liquation, a process based upon the fact that lead melts at a
lower temperature than silver. They also added lead to silver ores
that did not contain it, so that during the smelting the lead might
collect the silver, which thus became separated from its earthy gangue.
The principal ore was galena, the sulphide of lead. From this a large
part of the silver was obtained ; but, in the early mining operations,
it is probable not only that lumps of native silver were discovered at
or near the surface of the ground, but that the chloride of silver, a
yellowish-brown waxen substance, was also found in large quantities.
This rich mineral is known as horn-silver, the name being due to its
horn-like lustre, to which also it owes its scientific designation of
cerargyrite. The absence of lead in the most ancient silver bracelets
I Polybius, xxxiv, 9. I quote the translation of 2 Strabo, iii, 2) IO; pp. I47-8 C.
E. S. Shuckburgh. 3 Pliny, N.H. xxxiv, 159.
136 THE MINING OF T'HE ROMANS IN SPAIN.
proves that they were made either from native silver or from metal
obtained by reducing the chloride, which is a simple operation such
as could be performed in a camp-fire. In Pliny's day the surface
silver had been gathered, so that the ore had to be followed under-
ground. He says: ' Silver is only found in pits, there being no
indications to raise hopes of its existence, no shining particles as in
the case of gold. The earth in which it is found is sometimes red,
sometimes of an ashen hue. It is impossible, too, to melt it, except
in combustion with lead or with galena, this last being the name given
to the vein of lead that is mostly found running near the veins of
silver ore.' I This is a most interesting statement. Evidently the
silver was found in the earthy ore, not as the sulphide of lead, but
probably as the chloride or in small particles of native metal. The
earth,' which means ore, could not be melted except with lead
because it consisted probably of a silicious or quartzose gangue, so
that lead had to be added for the purpose of collecting the silver.
The use of the word galena for the lead is noteworthy, because Pliny
uses the same term in another context for the lead oxide now called
litharge. Pliny's slight knowledge of mining causes him to speak of
' the vein of lead mostly found running near the veins of silver ore,'
whereas he is alluding to the fact that usually the silver is found in an
ore in association or in combination with the lead.
Sundry relics found in the ancient workings tell us something
about the administration of the mines by the Romans. In I772
an inscription upon a small copper plate, now at Madrid, was
discovered in the wall of an adit at Rio Tinto. It reads as follows-
Imp(eratori) Nervae Caesari Aug(usto), I pontifici maximo, tr(i-
bunicia) I [p]otest(ate), p(atri) p(atriae), co(n)s(uli) iii I [desi]g(nato)
iiii, Pudens, Aug(usti) lib(ertus), I [p]rocurator I [de su]o posuit.2
This belongs to the year A.D. 97, and it is among the earliest records
of a procurator metallorum. But what McElderry describes as ' the
first clearly dated ' reference to such an officer3 is to be found in an
inscription, now at Seville, which probably goes back to the Flavian
age. The text is
T(ito) Flavio, Aug(usti) I lib(erto), Polychryso, I proc(uratori
montis I Mariani pracs l tantissumo, I confectores aeris.4
We have only fragmentary evidence on the subject of mining
administration, and it would appear that Roman policy was not
uniform in these matters, so that it was not until after the Flavian era
that all the mines were placed under the imperial procurators and
that a mining code was established. 5 There appears to have been a
general law, or lex metallis dicta, governing the conditions under which
the mines were to be leased, fixing the amount of royalty and making
1 Pliny, N.H. xxxiii, 95. 4 Dessau, I.L.S. 159I; C.I.L. ii, II79.
2 Dessau, I .L.S. 276; C.I.L. ii, 956. 5 M. P. Charlesworth, Trade-ioutes and Com-
3 7.R.S. ViI, IoI. rnerce of the Roman Empire, 1925, p. I96.
1'HE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN. I37
other regulations; but, besides this, there were laws regulating

particular kinds of mines and individual districts, such as the lex
ferrariarum and the lex metalli Vipascensis.
A general idea of the management of a Roman mining centre is
to be obtained from the inscriptions discovered near Aljustrel in
southern Portugal. 1 The first, found in a clay mound at the Algares
copper-mine in I 876, deals only with the mining-settlement at
Vipasca and is mainly concerned with the regulation of the township
wherein the workers lived.2 The second, which came to light in
I906, undoubtedly applied to Vipasca as much as did the first; but
the provisions which it contains, and which deal with the mining-
rights themselves, may well belong to a more general ordinance
affecting a wider area, perhaps even the whole of Spain.3 All who
lived in the district of Vipasca were under the supervision of the
procurator metallorum, who seems to embody in himself the municipal
government and who exercises a considerable power of jurisdiction.
He was authorised to lease mines either to individuals or to associations,
and it was his business to enforce the arrangements made for the
collection of all other revenues which the imperial treasury derived
from the local industry. From the second of these documents it
appears that the system in force at Vipasca was one whereby single pits
were let by the procurator, acting on behalf of the imperial treasury,
to small conductores, 'who then made their own arrangements for
working their concessions. For the lease itself the lessee had to pay,
and thereafter the,fiscus claimed as rent half the value of the ore
extracted. So long as this payment was made and the mine was kept in
regular production, the concessionaire enjoyed security of tenure. But
his rights were forfeited if the pit lay idle for six months, and he was
bound to observe a number of stringent rules designed to protect his
own workings and those of his neighbours against danger from rcckless
and unskilful exploitation of the concession. There are provisions
directed against the theft of ore and the destruction of the rock
pillars left to support the underground workings, the punishments
for these acts being specified, with particular reference to the treat-
ment of slaves guilty of such offences. Again, the safety of the
drainage Levels is guarded by restrictions as to the breaking of ore
adjacent to them.
The lessee was allowed to have associates, whose financial
responsibilities are fixed ; so that here we have the beginning of the
mining company, or societas, in the guise of a group of socii, or
shareholders, after the manner of the old Cornish cost-book system,
according to which the ' adventurers' as they were called, numbering
1 For these documents and their dates see xlv and xlvi, Rom. Abt., and id., Beitrage zur
Geschichte
Knox McElderry in 7.R.S. viII (i9i8), 95 ff. and des Bergbaurechts, Munich, I9z9.
references there given. To these must now be added 2 Dessau I.L.S. 689I ; G.I.L. ii, 5i82 ; Bruns.
F.. Schonbauer, ' Zur Erkli5rung der I,ex metalli Fontes iuris Romani (v7), no. I I 2.
Vipascenmi,.' in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung 3 Bruns, op. cit., no. 113.
usually from four to thirty-two, met monthly to receive their accounts

and thereupon declared an assessment or a dividend according to
the state of their finances. Any adventurer who defaulted in his
assessment had to lose his share, but he was entitled to his proportion
of the cash value of the machinery and materials, as determined usually
by arbitration. So here in the Vipascan regulations it is specified that
'those occupiers who have contributed to the expenditure at the
mines where there are several associates shall have the right to reclaim
from their associates that which they shall have spent in good faith ';
and the procurator was at hand to compel them to fulfil this obligation.
But, in spite of this, it is clear that at Vipasca we are dealing with
operations by men of small means, with working miners rather than
with people who could properly be called capitalists.
The other inscription concerns itself more with the mining-
settlement than with the mines themselves. The life of the community
was under the strict control of the fiscus and its agents, and the various
sources of revenue in the township were leased, like the mines, to
conductores. Revenue was derived partly from taxes, such as the tax
of one per cent. on sales, and partly from monopolies. Auctioneers,
cobblers, barbers and fullers, and possibly bankers too, had to buy from
the fiscus the right to engage in their respective occupations, and the
conditions under which each might be carried on were rigidly
prescribed. As might be expected, there was also a public bathing-
establishment, and this too was run by a concessionaire. This
contractor was held responsible for the proper maintenance of the
baths; he had to keep them full of warm water every day throughout
the year ; he had to see that the metal parts were polished once a
month; and he was obliged to admit the women from daybreak to
one o'clock for one as, and the men from two to eight o'clock at half
this price. The curious stipulation was made that the contractor was
forbidden to sell wood, except such pieces as were unsuitable for
making spears ; and, if he sold any wood that was fit for military
purposts, he was fined heavily-ioo sesterces for every cartload.
This recalls an incident mentioned by Strabo, who says"1 that the
Salassi, in the Pennine Alps, had gold mines that they worked for
themselves before the Roman conquest. From the wood that was
brought to the mines for fuel they selected the pieces out of which
spears could be made. When a Roman general, M. Valerius Messalla,
was wintering among them, he levied wood to serve for making spears
and also poles for the gymnastic exercises of his soldiers. Later, when
these gold-mines fell into Roman hands, it may well have been to them
that was applied the lex censoria, mentioned by Pliny, 2 which restricted
the number of workers in the mines of Vercelli to five thousand; for
these mines of the Salassi appear to be the same as those of Vercelli,
which is 42 miles north-east of Turin. This mining district, known
1 Strabo, iv, 6, 7; p. 205 C. 2 N.H. xxxiii, 78.
THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN. I39
as Vallanzasca, was exploited profitably by several English companies

during the nineteenth century.
Besides the baths, there is one other institution which deserves
mention, however familiar the arrangements about it may be.
Education was encouraged and, by an honourable exception to the
general rule, schoolmasters were exempt from taxation. In this
provision the hand of Vespasian may be detected. It was he who
first endowed public chairs of Greek and Latin rhetoric at Rome, and
it was one of these whose first occupant was the Spanish-Roman
Quintilian.
Thus, from the two Aljustrel tablets we gain a fairly clear picture
of the administration of mines by the Romans towards the end of the
first century of our era. 1 The mines themselves were worked on behalf
of thefiscus by small contractors, though there is evidence enough to
show that, as time went on, the State tended to take the actual work-
ing of the mines more and more into its own hands. And by the
grant of licenses to the contractors who provided the public services
of Vipasca the State did something to secure decent conditions of
life in the settlement. The various regulations, apart from the
purpose of collecting a revenue, are clearly intended to ensure a proper
performance of the functions essential to the welfare of the com-
munity. There seems good reason for this. The mines were in the
heart of the mountains, in a region that was forlorn and forsaken
and in one where a large population could not be maintained except
by making careful provision for sundry social services.
On the northern bank of the Guadalimar, a tributary of the
Guadalquivir (Baetis), in the present province of Jaen, are the
remains of the ancient town of Castulo, which was a mining centre
in Carthaginian days. The town was spared when the elder Scipio
defeated Hasdrubal near Baecula in 208 B.C., 2 and later it became a
flourishing Roman city. Livy tells US3 that Hannibal married a
lady of Castulo, whose name is given by Silius Italicus as Imilce,4
and it is probably owing to this tradition that sundry ancient workings
near Castulo are known to-day as los pozos de Anibal-the pits of
Hannibal. These workings were re-opened by a German company
about fifty years ago, and in 1875 one of the engineers found a remark-
able relic of the past in the form of a bas-relief. 5 This was carved on a
slab of sandstone, which originally must have been about twenty
inches square. When found, it was being used by an old woman, who
was busily engaged in washing her linen upon it. So far as could be
ascertained it had been unearthed at Palazuelos, near the modern
1I ide J. B. Mispoulet, ' Le regime des mines a o Horace W. Sandars, 'The Linares Bas Relief
e'epoque romaine et au moyen age,' Nouvelle rev. and Roman Mining Operations in Baetica,'
hist. de droit, xxxi, 1907. Archaeologia, lix, 323 ff.; cf. Rev. arch. 1903j p. 201,
2 Livy, XXViii, 20, Ii. pl. iv; also reproduced by Rostovtzeff, Social and
3 Livy, xxiv, 41, 7. Econ. Hist. of Roman Empire, pl. xxvii.
4 Pun. iii, 97 and io6.
mining centre of Linares. This relief represents a gang of labourers

on their way to work in the gallery of a mine. Five men are in front,
and in the background four others are indicated. The last one in
the front row is the tallest ; he is the foreman, and carries in his right
hand what looks like a truncheon; his left hand is passed through
the ring of an object that has been surmised to be either a bell or a
container for the oil in the lamps of the miners. The man in front
of him carries a pick, or, more precisely, a clumsy implement pointed at
one end and blunt at the other, so as to serve as either pick or hammer.
The next man carries a lamp, but what the two others are holding one
cannot tell, because the surface of the stone has been worn away. For
the same reason the feet, probably sandalled, are invisible. The middle
part of each man's body is covered by what seems to me to be a tunic
-not short drawers, as has been suggested' ; over this tunic is an
apron-not merely a belt-probably of leather, to protect the vital
parts from injury by stones or by the panniers in which the ore was
carried. At Freiberg to this day the black leather apron worn by the
miner is the badge of his craft. The heads of the men are uncovered.
The date of this relief is not known; but in the Centenillo mine, in
the same district, coins have been found that date from 45 B.C. or
before to 383 A.D.2 The tools found in these ancient workings are of
a clumsy type. The picks are usually straight, though some of them
are double-pointed. The lamps are made of baked clay, and stone
hammers are numerous. The Roman galleries were only about three
feet in height. The broken ore was put into panniers, which were
passed from hand to hand because free movement along the workings
was impracticable. Again we are reminded of the fact that ancient
mining was the merest grubbing in the ground.
Baetica, or Andalusia, was an important source of lead during the
days of the Roman Republic. The part of Spain richest in lead was
the mountain-range known to-day as the Sierra Morena. Nova
Carthago (Cartagena) was the principal place of exportation; and
extensive remains of Roman workings are found at Orihuela and
Mazarron, not far away. A little to the north of it lay the island of
Plumbaria,3 the name of which is perhaps derived from the r6le it
played in the export-trade. The most abundant evidence, however,
is obtained at Coto Fortuna, where ancient workings, now a part of
modern excavations, extend for a distance of more than five miles.
Here there have been found coins ranging in date from the last days
of Carthaginian occupation to the reign of Honorius at the beginning
of the fifth century A.D. The evidence of ancient exploitation in-
cludes numerous shafts ten feet in diameter, a network of galleries
that follow various veins, a drainage adit more than a mile long, and
a cupellation furnace, testifying to the separation of the silver from
1 Auguste Daubr6e, Rev. arch. i88z, p. 195. 3 Strabe iii, 4, 6; p. 159 C.
2 See below, p. 141.
THE MINING OF THE ROMANS IN SPAIN. 14I
the lead. As Besnier remarks, 1 if no remains of primary furnaces are

to be found, such as the fifty-two discovered at Gata, near Almeria,
it is because they were erected in the low land and are now covered
with vegetation. If likewise the slag heaps are small, we need not be
surprised when we remember that they were so rich in lead (io to I2
per cent.) as to invite modern companies to re-treat them on a large
scale.
The mines of Castulo, already mentioned, on the southern slope
of the Sierra Morena, constitute another large group of ancient
origin, now identified with the mining district of Linares. The
tradition that Hannibal operated mines hereabouts is not confirmed
by the finding of Carthaginian remains, but the Roman coins that
have been unearthed in the workings date from the days of the
Republic to those of the Emperor Gratian. At El Centenillo the
ancients shafts are as much as 65o feet deep, and the levels as
much as 3,000 feet long. The Roman work at the Centenillo appears
to have gone through three stages. First, they sank a series of small
shafts in the outcrop of ore, and then, when these became incon-
veniently deep, they drove an adit from the hillside at about the
horizon of the present seventh level to reach the ore-body at I50
metres below the surface. The heaps of slag and the ruins of brick
buildings outside the entry indicate that the period of this adit was
one of maximum exploitation. The Romans extended their workings
into the ore-body for a length of a thousand metres. Subsequently
another adit was started about 6o metres lower: this one had to be
driven one thousand metres to reach the ore. A fourth entry at the
bottom of the valley marks the last stage of development, which
apparently was stopped suddenly, probably by barbarian invasion.
Numerous coins found in the ruins of the houses prove that the mine
was worked during the first century B.c. and thereafter for two, if not
three, hundred years. Among the uses to which the lead was put, as
indicated by various relics, was that of making weights (of an elongated
pyramidal shape, probably for use in weaving), of making sling-bullets,
cigar-shaped and weighing two ounces, as well as seals employed in
closing sacks of rich ore. The letters S C which appear on a coin of
Augustus found here, certainly stand in that case for Senatus consulto;
but they are also found on a copper bucket, on several lead seals and as
countermarks on other coins, and it is possible that there they are the
initials of the name of the company which worked the mine. 2 In
the deepest of the Roman workings were found several Archimedean
screws, used for raising water to the adit. Five of these have been
uncovered, but it is likely that as many as twenty were in use at
one time.
Next comes the evidence of the ingots, with their inscriptions. Of
1 M. Besnier, Le commerce dto plomb a 1'epoque 2 Vide G. F. Hill and H. W. Sandars in I.R.S. I
romaine,' Rev. arch. Xii, 1920, p. 229.
these, 6o have been found in Spain. They are either semi-cylindrical

or truncated parallelepiped in shape. They weigh usually 30 to 35
kilogrammes, the average being about 32 kilogrammes, the equivalent
of IOO Roman pounds. Most of them bear the name of the mine
operator and his trade mark, for example-
P. Tur(e)lli(i) Labeon:(s)
(figure of a swan)
indicating that the mine was operated by Publius Turellius Labeo,
whose mark was a swan.' Thirty ingots were found in the debris
of an ancient smelting works at Orihuela, in Valencia ; these are
semi-cylindrical, about 43 to 45 cm. long, Io cm. wide, 8 cm. high
and weighing from 32 to 33 kilogrammes. The dimensions and
weights vary slightly. The inscription on them reads-
M. P. Roscieis M. f. Maic.2
The absence of the cognomen, and the archaic forms Roscieis for
Rosciis and Maicia for Maecia, seem to point to a Republican date.
Four ingots were found in I907 close to the remains of a large
cupellation-furnace in the Coto Fortuna district. They have the
shape of a truncated parallelepiped, and they are about 47 cm. long
by io S cm. wide at the base and 43-5 cm. long by 5 cm. wide on top.
The average weight is 3I kilogrammes. The silver content is 76
grammes per metric ton. In three recesses in alignment on the upper
surface is inscribed in letters of the first century A.D.-
societ(as) mont(is) argent(arii) Ilucro. 3
The first leasing company of this name operated in the district at the
beginning of the imperial age. The Silver Mountain of Ilucro is
the Sierra de las Moreras: and the name recalls the opoq oipyupouv
mentioned by Strabo,4 although he probably referred to a mountain
further west, near the source of the Baetis. This societas argentariarum
fodinarum montis Ilucr(onensis) has left its name inscribed on an ingot
found at Rome in I887. 5 The large number of ingots found at
Cartagena itself confirms the tradition that that city was the principal
place of exportation. Most of the exporters were individual citizens,
and only one, P. Turvilius Arco, has the suggestion of an Iberian
name: the others are Italians, such as those to whose cupidity and
enrichment both Strabo and Diodorus refer. All the inscriptions
indicate that the lead was produced at the end of the republican or
the beginning of the imperial period, at which time the exploitation
of the Spanish mines was at its zenith. Subsequently, perhaps from
Flavian times, the production of lead diminished, although that of
copper still continued vigorously. However, as Besnier has remarked, 6
the mining of lead cannot have ceased entirely at so early a period as
the second century A.D.; for the coins of Gratian found in the
I Ephem. Epig. viii, p. 480, no. Z54, 2. 4 Strabo, iii, 2, Ii ; p. I48 C.

2 Dessau, I.L.S. 8706; C.I.L. ii, 3439. 5 Dessau, I.L.S. 8708; C.I.L. xv. 7916.
3Ann. ep. I907, no. I35- 6 I.C. p. 244.
Castulo mines and those of Honorius from the region of Coto Fortuna
prove that the lead deposits were exploited until at least the end
of the fourth century, perhaps more for domestic consumption than
for export. The reason for the decay of the Spanish lead-mining
industry may possibly be found in Pliny's reference1 to the ease with
which lead was being obtained in Britain about the time of
Vcspasian. If the mining operations were continued, even on a small
scale, into the fifth century, they must have been interrupted by the
oncoming of the Vandals. A tale is told at Rio Tinto that in one of
the old Roman stopes there was found the skeleton of a miner lying
near a small heap of selected lead ore, as if he had been killed while
at work. Even se non e vero, e ben trovato ; the story will suffice to
mark the end of Roman mining in Spain.
1 N.H. xxxiv, i64,
J.R.S. vol. xviii (1928). PLATE XII.
77'
_ . _ 19. . ~ .
2 M
British Miuseum. London, W
No. i. Painted terra-cotta of the Ptolemaic period in the British Museum showing a
slave working a screw-pump (see p. 131).
No. 2. Part of a wooden screw-pump found near the Sotiel mine (United Alkali Co.),
Spain, now in the Institute of Archaeology, Liverpool (see p. 13I). Scale
approximately I: 20.

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The Mining of the Romans in Spain

By T. A. RICKARD, A.R.S.M. D.Sc.

During the Republican Period a number of mining districts were

I .trabo, iii, 2, 10; p. 148 C. 3 Ezekiel xxvii, 12.

1 The photograph was very kindly taken by Vitr. v, I2 and x, 8.

i Strabo, iii, 2, 8; p. 146 C. 4 Robert E. Palmer, 'Notes on some Ancient

Pliny, who had himself been procurator in Spain, says: 'Silver

'N.H. xxxiii, 96. 4 ibid. 78.

other regulations; but, besides this, there were laws regulating

usually from four to thirty-two, met monthly to receive their accounts

as Vallanzasca, was exploited profitably by several English companies

mining centre of Linares. This relief represents a gang of labourers

the lead. As Besnier remarks, 1 if no remains of primary furnaces are

these, 6o have been found in Spain. They are either semi-cylindrical

I Ephem. Epig. viii, p. 480, no. Z54, 2. 4 Strabo, iii, 2, Ii ; p. I48 C.

1 N.H. xxxiv, i64,

British Miuseum. London, W

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