It is not my intention to detract anything from the dignity of agriculture, and that the profits of mining are less stable I will always and readily admit, for the veins do in time cease to yield metals, whereas the fields bring forth fruits every year. But though the business of mining may be less reliable it is more productive, so that in reckoning up, what is wanting in stability is found to be made up by productiveness. Indeed, the yearly profit of a lead mine in comparison with the fruitfulness of the best fields, is three times or at least twice as great. How much does the profit from gold or silver mines exceed that earned from agriculture? Wherefore truly and shrewdly does Xenophon[12] write about the Athenian silver mines: "There is land of such a nature that if you sow, it does not yield crops, but if you dig, it nourishes many more than if it had borne fruit." So let the farmers have for themselves the fruitful fields and cultivate the fertile hills for the sake of their produce; but let them leave to miners the gloomy valleys and sterile mountains, that they may draw forth from these, gems and metals which can buy, not only the crops, but all things that are sold.
The critics say further that mining is a perilous occupation to pursue, because the miners are sometimes killed by the pestilential air which they breathe; sometimes their lungs rot away; sometimes the men perish by being crushed in masses of rock; sometimes, falling from the ladders into the shafts, they break their arms, legs, or necks; and it is added there is no compensation which should be thought great enough to equalize the extreme dangers to safety and life. These occurrences, I confess, are of exceeding gravity, and moreover, fraught with terror and peril, so that I should consider that the metals should not be dug up at all, if such things were to happen very frequently to the miners, or if they could not safely guard against such risks by any means. Who would not prefer to live rather than to possess all things, even the metals? For he who thus perishes possesses nothing, but relinquishes all to his heirs. But since things like this rarely happen, and only in so far as workmen are careless, they do not deter miners from carrying on their trade any more than it would deter a carpenter from his, because one of his mates has acted incautiously and lost his life by falling from a high building. I have thus answered each argument which critics are wont to put before me when they assert that mining is an undesirable occupation, because it involves expense with uncertainty of return, because it is changeable, and because it is dangerous to those engaged in it.
Now I come to those critics who say that mining is not useful to the rest of mankind because forsooth, gems, metals, and other mineral products are worthless in themselves. This admission they try to extort from us, partly by arguments and examples, partly by misrepresentations and abuse of us. First, they make use of this argument: "The earth does not conceal and remove from our eyes those things which are useful and necessary to mankind, but on the contrary, like a beneficent and kindly mother she yields in large abundance from her bounty and brings into the light of day the herbs, vegetables, grains, and fruits, and the trees. The minerals on the other hand she buries far beneath in the depth of the ground; therefore, they should not be sought. But they are dug out by wicked men who, as the poets say, are the products of the Iron Age." Ovid censures their audacity in the following lines:—
"And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the earth, and they dug up riches, those incentives to vice, which the earth had hidden and had removed to the Stygian shades. Then destructive iron came forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then war came forth."[13]
Another of their arguments is this: Metals offer to men no advantages, therefore we ought not to search them out. For whereas man is composed of soul and body, neither is in want of minerals. The sweetest food of the soul is the contemplation of nature, a knowledge of the finest arts and sciences, an understanding of virtue; and if he interests his mind in excellent things, if he exercise his body, he will be satisfied with this feast of noble thoughts and knowledge, and have no desire for other things. Now although the human body may be content with necessary food and clothing, yet the fruits of the earth and the animals of different kinds supply him in wonderful abundance with food and drink, from which the body may be suitably nourished and strengthened and life prolonged to old age. Flax, wool, and the skins of many animals provide plentiful clothing low in price; while a luxurious kind, not hard to procure—that is the so called seric material, is furnished by the down of trees and the webs of the silk worm. So that the body has absolutely no need of the metals, so hidden in the depths of the earth and for the greater part very expensive. Wherefore it is said that this maxim of Euripides is approved in assemblies of learned men, and with good reason was always on the lips of Socrates:
"Works of silver and purple are of use, not for human life, but rather for Tragedians."[14]
These critics praise also this saying from Timocreon of Rhodes:
"O Unseeing Plutus, would that thou hadst never appeared in the earth or in the sea or on the land, but that thou didst have thy habitation in Tartarus and Acheron, for out of thee arise all evil things which overtake mankind"[15].
They greatly extol these lines from Phocylides:
"Gold and silver are injurious to mortals; gold is the source of crime, the plague of life, and the ruin of all things. Would that thou were not such an attractive scourge! because of thee arise robberies, homicides, warfare, brothers are maddened against brothers, and children against parents."