Pliny the Elder and Mining in Ancient Rome

By Scott Hesser

Pliny the Elder condemns underground mining as an improper part of the human relationship with Nature. Pliny describes Nature as a protective mother, providing and hiding her treasures, in this case minerals, in a manner that best suits humans. However, humans are compelled by greed to challenge the commands of Nature. When humans stray out of the boundaries that Nature has established for them, Nature responds by punishing them in some way, thus, Nature acts as a disciplinarian.

Pliny describes mining techniques as they pertain to the extraction of gold, but it is possible to take his description of gold mining for mining as a whole. Pliny lists three basic types of mining; placer mining, shaft mining, and deep vein mining.[1] His description of these begins with the extraction of minerals from placer deposits; in particular, those found in rivers (Pliny XXXIII.66). Placer, or alluvial deposits, are formed by a mechanical process where minerals are removed and transported away from the parent vein and then concentrated in an area near or at the surface. Erosion caused by the flow of water is the most common mechanical cause of this, and therefore placer deposits are generally found in rivers (Healy 30). An important aspect of placer deposits, is that the ore generally exists in its native state, that is to say, it is not chemically combined with other minerals (Healy 74). Pliny is correct in asserting that gold from placers is “in its most perfect state,” and that the cause of this is “the friction induced by the current” of the river (Pliny XXXIII.66). Because the ore from placers is so pure, no metallurgical processes are involved after extraction. This makes such mining extremely simple (Healy 74).

Pliny does not comment much more about this style of mining, which leads me to believe he had a general acceptance of it. As we shall see later, Pliny is very much a supporter of natural products found on the surface. When minerals are extracted from the placers, there is minimal digging involved. The focus of the operation is simply the separation of the valuable minerals from waste soil and rock. In Asia Minor, streams containing gold, for example, were directed to flow over greasy sheep skins that trapped the grains of gold in the water (Healy 75).[2] Another method, one that is still practiced in modern times, is panning. Clumps of soil are placed in a pan with water and then stirred around and broken up by hand. Larger chunks of the waste soil or rock are removed, then the water containing the smaller particles of the waste is poured out, leaving the heavy ore at the bottom of the pan (Healy 76). Perhaps the most complicated method of placer mining was developed by the Romans. A process known as ‘hushing’ involved diverting a large water supply to a sight where ore was located. Utilizing the force of gravity to build up the momentum of water traveling down hill, the Romans used rushing water to remove the overburden of waste soil from a placer. After that was done, traditional methods were then used to separate the minerals (Healy 87). However, as complicated as hushing may sound, it pales in comparison to the complexity of underground mining.

The next two methods of mining that Pliny discusses take place underground. While Pliny may be relaxed about Placer mining, his attitude toward shafting and deep vein mining is quite different. Shafting is the construction of vertical shafts that lead down to a large gallery where minerals are often found combined with rock or soil, and then chipped away from the walls. Deep vein mining is similar to the second method, except shafts are built from a horizontal approach and the operation is generally conducted on a grander scale, with multiple galleries connected by a maze of shafts (Pliny XXXIII.66).[3] Pliny dedicates more words to the description of deep vein mining than to the other two methods. This is largely because it was the more popular method during his time, and the grandness of its scale better exemplifies man’s lust of mineral wealth.

Pliny illustrates deep vein mining as a feat “that rivals the accomplishments of the Giants” (Pliny XXXIII.70). Considering the degree of excavation accomplished and the tools used to do so, this statement seems convincing. In one of his accounts, Strabo describes Mount Realgar as having been hollowed out by miners (Strabo XII.4.17, Forbes VII.114). Mining was conducted on such a level all across the Roman Empire. Whenever a vein of ore was found, the ancients chased it right into the heart of a mountain. Amazingly, the most advanced tools used were iron hammers and picks: even then, iron tools were often used alongside stone and antler picks (Forbes VII.195).[4] Equally as impressive as the act of chiseling away the earth is the hauling of the debris to the surface and the refinement of ore. Thousands of tons of ore were hauled from the mines on the backs of workers or by crude contraptions of ropes and sleds. Once on the surface, the ore is refined or smelted by various techniques, none of which is at all efficient.[5] In fact, it is the inefficiency of the whole mining process, combined with the sheer magnitude of it, that makes it an achievement to rival the Giants.

To accomplish such an achievement, one must have an immense labor force. The average mining operation would have employed more men than the largest of agricultural undertakings. Technological inefficiency made it necessary to have a large number of slaves to make any profit. If the number of workers was small, they could still hammer productively, but hauling the ore out and refining it would be impossible (Forbes 210). With the amount of work needed to be done, the mines could never be saturated with slave laborers. Major mine owners at the Laurion silver mines kept large slave forces; Nicias employed 1000 slaves, Hipponicus 600 slaves, and Philemonides 300; all working in the same general area (Boeckh 660).[6] Pliny must have looked down upon the “enormous labor in deep vein mining,” for he frequently attributes the undertaking of such a task to greed (HN XXXIII.77).

Mines were not desirable places to work; the labor was usually assigned to insubordinate or inferior slaves. Pliny tells us that men worked for months underground, never seeing the light of day and measuring their shifts in lamps burned (XXXIII.70). Abandoned chambers were utilized as kitchens and bedrooms for workers, attesting to the amount of time they must have spent below the surface (Forbes 141). Most of the passageways were so narrow that a man of average size must have had difficulty crawling through them. However, being cramped in small tunnels and deprived of sunlight must have been a mere inconvenience compared to the lack of fresh air. Fires were often set in order to heat and soften rocks. These fires, combined with burning candles and the fumes from the earth itself, created a highly polluted air within the mines (Hughes 120). Pliny notes that the fumes of silver mines were dangerous, especially for dogs (Pliny XXXIII.98).[7] Narrow ventilation shafts were chiseled between galleries and the surface, but this was hardly sufficient (Forbes 210). According to Strabo, because of the noxious fumes, “workmen are doomed to a quick death” (Strabo XII.3.40. Forbes 145). Cave-ins must have also been a frequent hazard that claimed workers’ lives.

It would be wrong to say that Pliny looks down upon this labor simply because he has described the deplorable nature of it. Addressing labor, especially farming, with a resentful tone is common with ancient writers. Virgil, in his Georgics, tells of how “relentless toil” never ends because nature causes everything to slip backwards, reclaiming the work done (Virgil I.145-204). Hesiod believed that it was an angry Zeus who “thought of painful cares for men” (Hesiod 48). Yet, with such seemingly negative views of labor, these same authors also praise work, often as the source of our virtue and morality. Even Pliny believed the farmer who worked hard and produced a successful crop was a hero for his triumph over nature. Yet, mining is treated differently. After miners collapsed a mine, Pliny says they regarded themselves as “conquering heroes.” However Pliny quickly reduces their triumph by adding the following: “even at this junction there is not gold visible, nor did they have any positive indication that there was any when they began to dig” (Pliny XXXIII.73).[8] What is it about mining that causes Pliny to treat its labor differently from farming, and present it as a task done out of foolishness?

Pliny personifies Nature and assigns her the task of looking over her resources. She hides minerals “deep within the bowls of the earth,” and discourages men from finding them (HN XXXIII.3). When the land above mined areas trembles and opens up, it is “our holy parent’s way of expressing her indignation” (HN XXXIII.2). In this sense, it is Nature who has made mining such a difficult task and it’s here, where we can see the difference between mining and farming. By the toil of farming, just as the toil of mining, a person can have her goods. However, Nature never had an “indignation” about farming, and for that reason she gave her fruits again and again, far more easily than she did her minerals. According to Mary Beagon, it was a common thought that “Earth (or Nature) was man’s nurse and mother, providing all his real needs” (Beagon 40). By the same rationale, it is a good nurse that hides what is harmful to humans. To rephrase this, “the good things which man is meant to have are given willingly and easily” by Nature, while what is harmful and what we are not meant to have, is made difficult to retrieve (Beagon 41). Because Nature is unwilling to yield these minerals, Pliny cannot offer any honor or praise to mining because it is the rape of Nature.[9]

Pliny believes life would be far better and more innocent if humans “coveted nothing from anywhere other than the surface of the earth” (HN XXXIII.3). His belief stems largely from the value the things on the surface have. Pliny claims that all these products “exist for man’s benefit,” because it is these fruits and grains from which “life is sustained” (Pliny XX.1-2). However, as I have stated before in my description of placers, minerals are also found on the surface. This may seem odd that nature would make something as gold and iron so readily available and at the same time hide it away in her bowls. However, this does not mean Nature is contradicting herself. Again, that which is at the surface is still considered good; the distinction between these minerals and those below the surface is the amount that humans are to have. As we shall see, minerals at the surface are provided in such proportions that they are beneficial to humans. The amount that is underground is too great a quantity for humans to posses and “the trouble taken to obtain the substance is disproportionate when set against its moral worth” (Beagon 42). Pliny believes that the only reason people dig is because of greed. Greed and ingenuity have given humans “many ways in which to inflate the value of objects” (Pliny XXXIII.4). For example, Pliny cites the decoration of objects, such as cups, with gemstones and gold as one way humans have made minerals more valuable (Pliny XXXIII.5). Other ingenious developments were rings and coinage. Pliny finds these most disturbing and lists them as the greatest offenses against humanity.

Pliny believed “the first person to put gold on his fingers committed the worst crime against human life” (Pliny XXXIII.8). It used to be common practice in Rome for a man of status to wear an iron ring as a representation of his courage in war. This practice was eventually replaced by the possession of a gold ring, which is as Pliny implies, a symbol of wealth rather than any noble characteristic (Pliny XXXIII.8). Pliny links the introduction of the gold ring to the rise of the equestrian order as a single body within the government, however, I find it difficult to make as direct a connection as he does. Instead, I would argue from the clues Pliny gives, that it was not just the introduction of a ring, but the overall increase in wealth throughout Rome, that lead to this restructuring. Pliny says that, “for a long time gold was found at Rome only in very small quantities” (Pliny XXXIII.14). As Rome’s economy grew in strength, numerous private individuals, foreigners, and even freed slaves were able to increase their personal wealth. As individuals grew richer, they were able to exert a greater influence in the government.[10] Pliny’s moral outrage over this arises from his social conservatism, a social conservatism that resembles Cato’s ideals. Cato “feels that those who concern themselves with farming, and avoid the trappings of the social elite, are superior to the aristocracy. Working with the land is morally better than getting involved in politics” (Adams).

The second worst crime against human life was “committed by the person who struck a gold denarius" (Pliny XXXIII.42). I can only take this to mean that Pliny is against coinage as a whole and not just gold coinage because he also says, “money was the underlying cause of all greed” (Pliny XXXIII.48). He also states that money led to the invention of usury, which is “a means of making profit without effort,” and a practice he surely found dishonorable (Pliny XXXIII.48). However, this cannot be the depth of Pliny’s case against coinage. He must also have understood that much of Rome’s power had come from the existence of money, in fact he lists the sums rendered from defeated states as tribute. Again it is Pliny’s nostalgia for the past that helps shape his opinion. Pliny recalls Homer’s description of Trojan times and whimsically says, “what a far happier age it was when goods were bartered” (Pliny XXXIII.6). Angela Grant tells us that value was once measured differently. As she states, “the very concept of money and income is inextricably linked with agricultural pursuits” (Grant). Pliny offers proof of this: “our word for money, pecunia, was derived from the word for cattle, pecus. Even today in the censors accounts all national revenue is called pastures, because rent from pasture land was for a long time the only source of public income. Furthermore, fines were reckoned only in terms of payment of sheep and oxen” (Pliny XVII.11). Even though Homer admired gold, he still expressed true value in the simple necessities of life.

As Pliny has stated, mineral wealth and money generates greed. Greed weakens the moral fiber of man, and in the most intense cases, it can lead to gold fever. Pliny gives several examples of gold fever, the first being the story of Septumuleius. When he heard that the state was offering the weight in gold for the head of his friend, Gaius Grachus, Septumuleius cut off his good friend’s head. Septumuleius furthered the immorality by placing lead in the head’s mouth to increase his take from the state (Pliny XXXIII.48). Pliny describes how humans are stronger when they are not fixed on gold. Sparticus forbid his comrades to possess gold or silver, and during this time, the runaway slaves were far stronger (Pliny XXXIII.49).

Pliny also blames the value humans gives to rare minerals for the downfall of the liberal arts. In more virtuous times people “put the arts first, when displaying their resources, in the belief that the arts could bestow immortality” (Pliny XIV.4). During these times, art was one of life’s greatest rewards. However, the growing extent of mineral resources made wealth more attainable and distracted the artist. Now they are only concerned with amassing a fortune and as result, have become lazy. For example, during the beginning of literature, when Hesiod was writing, authors were “more productive with their research” (Pliny XIV.3). The loss of respect for the arts pertains also to the patrons. People view wealth as the mark of status, and for this reason Pliny says they would rather have bronze statues of popular athletes, made by foreign artists, rather than simple wax masks of members of their family. For such people, “their concern for honor extends only as far as the price” (Pliny XXXV.4). Pliny believes the impact of this to be greater than simply the decay of art, but the decay of civilization altogether. Pliny believes humanity's chief concern has become the acquisition of wealth because possession is the only pleasure left to humans, “whereas the true prizes of life went to rack and ruin” (Pliny XIV.5). As a result, Pliny declares “that pleasure has begun to live, while life itself has come to an end (Pliny XIV.5).

Pliny obviously feels that the inflation of the value of gold and other minerals is immoral and has seriously injured humanity, but does this mean that these minerals have no value at all? The answer to this is no. Pliny explains the logical value of minerals such as gold and silver; a value that a less greedy man such as Homer may have understood.[11] For example, an “important determinant of [gold’s] value is that it suffers very little wear with use” (Pliny XXXIII.60). This is a far more natural reason for its desirability than its use as a symbol of status as described before. Sliver is also valuable for more respectable reasons. Sliver slag, or “dross” as it is called, has medical value and “heals when used in plasters and is especially effective in causing wounds to close over” (Pliny XXXIII.105). These values differ from the values of wealth and status that humans have imposed upon them in that Pliny believes they have a beneficial use for humanity. Minerals therefore can have an inherent value as the result of their natural qualities; thus we could say they have natural values. Perhaps the difference between Pliny’s imposed value and natural value can be best clarified through examination of Pliny’s take on iron.

The natural and imposed values of iron stand in great opposition to each other, for as Pliny says, “iron is the best and worst of life’s materials” (Pliny XXXIV.138). Iron has a limitless number of uses for humans, ranging from plowing, cutting wood, planting trees, building houses, etc. In this manner, iron greatly improves life for humans and it is a treasured gift of nature. However, iron is also used for bloodshed when humans turn it into instruments of war. Pliny discusses the innovation of using iron projectiles that are equipped with wings and their ability to kill a person at a distance. Pliny considers this to be “the most criminal misuse of man’s genius” (Pliny XXXIV.138). This is not a natural value of iron, even though its characteristics complement weaponry. To any argument against this, Pliny says, “let man, not Nature, take the blame for this” (Pliny XXXIV.139). From this we can see that Pliny considers a material to have natural value if it benefits humans. Also, the natural value comes as a result of an object’s natural properties; for example, iron is hard and therefore has a natural value as a tool. Imposed value is strictly the product of man’s imagination. The use of silver as currency offers no benefit to the lives of humans, as Pliny has argued. Further, to say that silver or gold has a natural value as a means of a currency is impossible; there is no property that makes silver more suitable than a clam shell.[12]

However, as Pliny admits to a natural value of minerals, he implies that mining is also natural. This is contradictory to Pliny’s case against mining as discussed in the beginning of this essay. From his statements we see that Pliny looks down upon mining as deplorable work that intrudes upon an unwilling Mother Nature. However, this contradiction can be escaped by the fact that minerals can be obtained in ways other than the deep vein mining Pliny focuses on. Pliny discusses deep vein mining because it is the method employed to meet the demand of minerals that is brought on by their imposed value. The desire for gold as a means of monetary wealth drives men to dig for gold “when there is no gold visible,” and no “positive indication” that there was any there to begin with (Pliny XXXIII.73). When iron is needed during war, men “dig with sheer recklessness” (Pliny XXXIII.73). Thus we can say that imposed or unnatural value leads to unnatural mining. As stated before, Pliny also says that minerals can be found above ground, and in fact, he states gold is more pure when found in placer deposits. This would be a natural means of attaining minerals. Surely this method would not produce the same quantity of mineral, but such an amount would not be needed if these minerals were used according to their natural value.

Pliny feels that underground mining is unnatural because it is harmful to humans and resists Nature as a provider and protector. From this we can see that being or behaving natural would be following the guidance of Nature, who leads to the protection and prosperity of the human society. Clearly Pliny considers what is good for the society as a requirement, rather than the good of just the individual. The crimes of gold rings and coinage are crimes against ‘humanity’ as a society. In terms of Nature’s guidance, Pliny seems to imply that Nature teaches through discipline. Humans know they are following Nature’s lead when they are content, and that they have disobeyed when they are punished by injury. This can be contrasted to Virgil’s belief that Nature teaches through example. In Book IV of his Georgics, Virgil identifies the beehive as a perfect example of how to live as a natural entity. Pliny fails to identify a natural human or human society as one that follows the animalistic behavior of Nature’s other creations. It is commonplace to think that animals are typically closer to Nature, largely for the reason that they never violate Nature’s rule. However, we can see from Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, that the human must act in ways that are unlike those of animals in order to even be human.[13] We can further prove this by the common acceptance that it is natural, if not essential, for human’s to use tools, especially for farming. From here we can see that Pliny feels humans have a place in Nature that is defined by certain boundaries, and that these boundaries are different for humans than they are for the other members of the natural world.

However, Pliny shows us that underground mining and the utilization of its products, clearly crosses the boundaries of Nature. Does this mean that humans are no longer, or cannot be natural? Clearly not, Pliny looks at man as a natural creation; Nature is, after all, man’s “holy parent” (Pliny XXXIII.1). Pliny believes mining to be a proper part of man’s relation to Nature, so long as it is done under Nature’s conditions. What Nature decides is right for humans, she provides, and it is truly good for them. Pliny shows us that the agricultural products Nature makes available at the surface sustain their lives. The medicines she provides lengthen their lives and the small amount of minerals she places there makes life easier. What Nature decides is bad and harmful to humans, she stores away like a good parent. However, humans are greedy. Greed leads humans to reject all that is natural and make decisions that are not in accordance to Nature’s wishes. Greed compels humans to live in a world of his own design. Thus we can see that humans have a dual-nature about them, one that is natural and one that is not. Pliny’s criticism of greed shows us that he ultimately feels that humanity’s rightful place in the world is the one Nature has defined for it and not the one it creates on its own.

References

Adams, Mark. “The Fables of Aesop.” 1998.

Beagon, Mary. Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder. Oxford: Clarendon

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Boeckh, August. “A Dissertation on the Silver Mines of Laurion in Attica.” Kounas,

Dionysios A. Ed. Studies on the Ancient Silver Mines at Laurion. Kansas:

Colorado Press, 1972.

Forbes, R.J. Studies in Ancient Technology. Vol. 7. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1963.

Grant, Angela. “Works and Days and the book of Proverbs.” 1998.

Healy, John F. Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. London: Thames

and Hudson, 1978.

Trans. Healy, John F. Pliny the Elder: Natural History: A Selection. Harmondsworth:

Penguin,1991.

Hughes, Donald J. Pan’s Travail. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Trans. Turner, Paul. Longus: Daphnis and Chloe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989.

Trans. Wender, Dorothea. Hesiod and Theognis: Hesiod, “Works and Days;”

Harmondsworth: Penguin,1973.

Trans. Wilkinson, L.P. Virgil: The Georgics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.