smelting which, though more elaborate, was still very remunerative. When the Italians worked them along with the barbarians for a space of two months, straightway gold coin went down one-third in value throughout the whole of Italy; but when the Taurisci became aware of this they expelled their partners and held the monopoly. But now all the gold mines are in the hands of the Romans. And there too, just as in Iberia, the rivers in addition to the dug gold produce gold dust, but not in such quantities[1]."
In another passage, speaking of the town of Noreia in Noricum, he says "this district possesses productive gold-washings and iron-works[2]."
Moving on again westwards, we easily find strong evidence of active gold-mining in the Alpine regions. All the granite strata on the southern side of the High Alps from the Simplon to Mont Blanc are auriferous. Not only have extensive mining operations been carried on at different points down almost to the present day, but the mines were beyond all doubt vigorously worked, not merely in Roman but in pre-Roman days. In the district of La Besse, at the foot of Mont Grand on the right bank of the Cervo between Biella and Ivrea, are still to be seen very extensive traces of gold washings and gold diggings[3]. These are no other than the once famous mines of Victumulae alluded to by Strabo when, in speaking of this region, he says that "there is not now as much attention bestowed on the mines as there used to be, because the mines in the country of the transalpine Kelts and in Spain are more profitable, but formerly they were well worked, since at Vercelli there was a gold-digging. Vercelli is a village near Ictumulae which is itself a village, and both of them are in the vicinity of Placentia[4]." So important were these mines that Pliny[5] says there existed a Censorian law relating to them, by
- ↑ Strabo, 173. 34-49, Didot.
- ↑ Ibid. 178 Didot.
- ↑ Th. Mommsen (Nordetruskische Alfabete, p. 250, seqq.) gives an admirable summary of the metallurgical history of this region.
- ↑ Strabo, 218.
- ↑ Pliny, XXXIII. 4. § 78, extat lex censoria Victumularum aurifodinae, qua in Vercellenai agro cavebatur, ne plus quinque M hominum in opere publicani haberent.
