Asturia, Gallæcia, and Lusitania furnish in this manner, yearly, according to some authorities, twenty thousand pounds’ weight of gold, the produce of Asturia forming the major part. Indeed, there is no part of the world that for centuries has maintained such a continuous fertility in gold. I have already[899] mentioned that by an ancient decree of the senate, the soil of Italy has been protected from these researches; otherwise, there would be no land more fertile in metals. There is extant also a censorial law relative to the gold mines of Victumulæ, in the territory of Vercellæ,[900] by which the farmers of the revenue were forbidden to employ more than five thousand men at the works.
CHAP. 22.—ORPIMENT.
There is also one other method of procuring gold; by making it from orpiment,[901] a mineral dug from the surface of the earth in Syria, and much used by painters. It is just the colour of gold, but brittle, like mirror-stone,[902] in fact. This substance greatly excited the hopes of the Emperor Caius,[903] a prince who was most greedy for gold. He accordingly had a large quantity of it melted, and really did obtain some excellent gold;[904] but then the proportion was so extremely small, that he found himself a loser thereby. Such was the result of an experiment prompted solely by avarice: and this too, although the price of the orpiment itself was no more than four denarii per pound. Since his time, the experiment has never been repeated.
CHAP. 23.—ELECTRUM.
In all[905] gold ore there is some silver, in varying proportions; a tenth part in some instances, an eighth in others. In one mine, and that only, the one known as the mine of Albucrara, in Gallæcia,[906] the proportion of silver is but one thirty-sixth: hence it is that the ore of this mine is so much more valuable than that of others. Whenever the proportion of silver is one-fifth, the ore is known also by the name of “electrum;”[907] grains, too, of this metal are often found in the gold known as “canaliense.”[908] An artificial[909] electrum, too, is made, by mixing silver with gold. If the proportion of silver exceeds one-fifth, the metal offers no resistance on the anvil.
Electrum, too, was highly esteemed in ancient times, as we learn from the testimony of Homer, who represents[910] the palace of Menelaüs as refulgent with gold and electrum, silver and ivory. At Lindos, in the island of Rhodes, there is a temple dedicated to Minerva, in which there is a goblet of electrum, consecrated by Helena: history states also that it was moulded after the proportions of her bosom. One peculiar advantage of electrum is, its superior brilliancy to silver by lamp-light. Native electrum has also the property of detecting poisons; for in such case, semicircles, resembling the rainbow in appearance, will form upon the surface of the goblet, and emit a crackling noise, like that of flame, thus giving a twofold indication of the presence of poison.[911]
CHAP. 24.—THE FIRST STATUES OF GOLD.
The first statue of massive gold, without any hollowness within, and anterior to any of those statues of bronze even, which are known as “holosphyratæ,”[912] is said to have been erected in the Temple of the goddess Anaïtis. To what particular region this name belongs, we have already[913] stated, it being that of a divinity[914] held in the highest veneration by the nations in that part of the world. This statue was carried off during the wars of Antonius with the people of Parthia; and a witty saying is told, with reference to it, of one of the veterans of the Roman army, a native of Bononia. Entertaining on one occasion the late Emperor Augustus at dinner, he was asked by that prince whether he was aware that the person who was the first to commit this violence upon the statue, had been struck with blindness and paralysis, and then expired. To this he made answer, that at that very moment Augustus was making his dinner off of one of her legs, for that he himself was the very man, and to that bit of plunder he had been indebted for all his fortune.[915]
As regards statues of human beings, Gorgias of Leontini[916] was the first to erect a solid statue of gold, in the Temple at Delphi, in honour of himself, about the seventieth[917] Olympiad: so great were the fortunes then made by teaching the art of oratory!