We shall now return to Aquitania and the Bay of Biscay, from which we digressed to Britain, and coming into Northern Spain enter that region which was to the Greek of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. what the Spanish Main was to the Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It seems beyond doubt that when the Phoenicians first reached the Spanish coasts the natives were fully acquainted with both gold and silver. Tradition told how the Phoenicians found the native Iberians feeding their horses from mangers made of silver, and that after having filled every available portion of their ship with freight of treasure, they replaced their anchors by others made of silver. Colaeus of Samos in the eighth century B.C. had been the first of all Greeks to reach Tartessus, the Tarshish of Holy writ, having been carried away by a storm when on a voyage to Egypt, and driven right through the Straits of Gibraltar, “under some guiding providence,” says Herodotus[142]: “for this trading town was in those days a virgin port” (i.e. unfrequented by merchants). “The Samians in consequence made a profit by their return freight, a profit greater than any Greeks had ever made before, except Sostratus, son of Laodamas, of Egina, with whom no one else can compare.” From the tenth part of their gains, amounting to six talents, the Samians made a brazen vessel. At a later period the Phocaeans made great profit by trade with Iberia, which at that time meant East Spain as opposed to Tartessus, as well as with the Tartessians. The king of this people, by name Arganthonius, who reigned over them for eighty years, and attained to the patriarchal age of one hundred and twenty, became such a friend of the Phocaeans that he invited them to settle in his land, perhaps through motives of policy, wishing to have their support against the Phoenicians of Gadeira, or Gades (Cadiz), the most ancient of all the daughter cities of Tyre. When he did not succeed in persuading the Phocaeans, afterwards having learned from them of the great growth of the power of the Medes, he gave them treasure to enable them to fortify their city with the strong wall by means of which they were to withstand Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, until they launched their ships, and embarked their wives and children, with that firm resolution to be free, which has made their name memorable through the ages[143].
The evidence of these passages is sufficient to show that already in the seventh century B.C., not simply the gold, but likewise the silver, of the Spanish peninsula was known to and wrought by the Iberians, the oldest race of whom written history affords any traces in the west of Europe.
We shall now deal with the actual localities and mines described for us by the ancient writers. Strabo once more is our chief helper: he seems as usual for all statements about the mines of the west to have drawn his information chiefly from Posidonius, although he likewise makes use of Polybius and others. “Posidonius averred that in the country of the Artabri, who are the most remote people in Lusitania towards the north and west [occupying the present province of Galicia], the earth crops out in silver, tin and white gold (for the gold is mixed with silver), and that the rivers carry down this earth, and that the women scrape it up with hoes and wash it in sieves into a box[144].” Here we have a description of the method employed by the natives in the remote regions of the north-west of Spain about 100 B.C., before Roman influences had time to affect them, and we may not unreasonably infer from it that the same process was universal amongst the Iberians and Celtiberians of Spain.
In his general description of Spain Strabo declares that nowhere in the world down to his day was such plenty of gold, silver, copper and iron to be found as in Turdetania, the district named after the Turdetani, one of the two great tribes into which the Turti were divided [from the name of Turti it is probable that Tartessus, the Greek name for this region, as also for the Baetis (Guadalquivir), and also the Phoenician Tarshish were formed]. “Not merely is the gold got by mining but it is swept up. The rivers and torrents carry down the golden sand, which in many localities is likewise to be found in places where there is no water, but there it is invisible, but in those that water flows over the gold dust gleams out. And flushing with water that has to be fetched the arid spots, they make the gold dust glitter, and by digging wells and by devising other means they get out the gold by washing the sand, and what are called gold washings are now more numerous than the gold diggings. But they say that in the gold dust are found nuggets sometimes even half a pound in weight (βὼλους ἡμιλιτριαίας) which they term palae, which need but little refining, and they say likewise that when stones are split little nuggets like teats are discovered, and when the gold is refined and purified with a kind of earth which contains alum and vitriol, the residuum is electrum. When this residuum, which consists of a mixture of gold and silver, is again refined, the silver is burnt away and the gold remains. But the gold is very fusible, and on this account it is melted with chaff rather than with coal, because the flame being gentle acts moderately upon a metal which is yielding and easily fused, whereas the charcoal causes excessive waste by melting it too much by its violence, and detracting from it. In the river-beds the sand is swept up and then washed in troughs beside the river; or else a well is dug, and the earth that is brought up out of it is washed. They make the furnaces for the silver high, that the smoke from the ore may be carried up into the air: for it is noisome and pestilential[145].” Then he adds that “some of the copper works are called gold mines, from which people infer that gold was formerly dug from them. Posidonius, when praising the number and excellence of the mines, refrains from none of his wonted rhetoric, but warms up with hyperboles, for he says he cannot doubt the truth of the story that once on a time when the woods caught fire, the earth having been melted, inasmuch as it was permeated with silver and gold, boiled out on to the surface over the whole mountain, and that a whole hill was a mass of money heaped up by the bounteous hand of fortune. And to speak generally (he says) any one who saw these regions would say that they were Nature’s perennial store chambers or Sovereignty’s inexhaustible treasure house. For not merely the surface but the under-soil is rich (πλουσία—ὑπόπλουτος), and with those people it is not Hades who dwells in the region beneath the earth, but Pluto (Πλούτων). So spake he in a fine figure as though he himself too were drawing from a mine his diction in copious store. There was a saying of Phalereus in reference to the eagerness of the miners of Laurium in Attica, that they dug as continuously and earnestly as if they expected to drag up Pluto himself. This saying Posidonius quotes anent the energy and vigour of those who worked the Spanish mines, for they cut deep and winding galleries, and by means of ‘Egyptian pumps’ combated the springs which burst into the workings[146].”
So rich were the silver mines of New Carthage (Cartagena) that in the time of Polybius (140 B.C.) 40,000 men were employed in working them for the Roman State, and the daily out-put was reckoned at 25,000 drachms, or roughly speaking about 3,000 ounces Troy.
Diodorus Siculus[147] gives an account of mines and mining in Spain, which, as it is clearly derived from the same passage of Posidonius as the account of Strabo, is worth quoting, especially as it gives probably in extenso what Strabo has summarized. For although it more particularly refers to the discovery of silver mines, yet it is very relevant to our subject, since silver invariably is later in point of discovery than gold; thus if we can fix at an early period an inferior limit for the knowledge of silver in Spain, we may with confidence fix the inferior limit for the knowledge of gold at a still earlier epoch. Diodorus has been describing the range of the Pyrenees, which like all the early geographers he represents as running north and south, and thus proceeds: “Since there are on them (the Pyrenees) many forests dense with trees, they say that in ancient times the whole mountain region was completely burned by some shepherds having cast away a firebrand. Then since the fire kept burning on for many days continuously, the surface of the earth was burned and the mountains from the circumstance were called Pyrenaean (Πυρηναῖα, scorched), and the surface of the burnt region flowed with much silver, and since the natural ore had been smelted, there ensued many lava-like streams of pure silver. But inasmuch as the natives did not understand the use of it, the Phoenicians trading with them, and having learned about the occurrence, bought the silver for some small return in other wares; accordingly the Phoenicians by conveying it to Greece and to Asia and all the rest of the world acquired great wealth. And so covetous were the merchants that though their ships were fully freighted, when much silver still remained over they cut out the lead that was in their anchors and replaced it with silver. The Phoenicians by means of such trade increased greatly and sent out many colonies, some to Sicily and the adjacent islands, others to Libya, others again to Sardinia and Spain. But many years afterwards the Spaniards, having become acquainted with the peculiarities of silver, started remarkable mines. Wherefore as they prepared very excellent silver in very great quantities they used to get great revenues.” Diodorus then gives a detailed account of the working of the shafts and winding galleries which followed the course of the veins of gold and silver, the difficulties caused by the bursting in of springs and subterranean streams, and the ways in which the miners overcame this latter obstruction by means of the Egyptian pumps. But Diodorus, as a patriotic Sicilian, takes care to tell his reader that this pump was invented by Archimedes, the famous mathematician of Syracuse, when, in the course of his travels, he paid a visit to Egypt. Finally, he gives a short but graphic picture of the sufferings of the wretched slaves who were bought wholesale by the mine owners and endured incredible miseries until death, the only friend they had to look to, came to end their sufferings. Strabo, the stoic, is silent on this point, which here, as in Egypt, so strongly moved the heart of Diodorus.
The story of the discovery of silver by the burning of the woods at first savours of the mythical, but there is really good reason for believing that there is in it a solid nucleus of truth. Tin was unknown in Sumatra until in 1710[148] it was discovered by the accidental burning down of a house (an incident which recalls Charles Lamb’s delightful account of the discovery of Roast Pig). It is highly probable that it was owing to some such accident that men first became acquainted with silver, as that metal is rarely if ever found native. It may well be therefore that mankind has learned the art of smelting metalliferous ore from observing the results of some such conflagration as that described by Posidonius.
Finally, we shall turn to Pliny the Elder for a moment. That industrious collector has given us a minute account of the various methods of mining carried on in Spain in his time, but as that is beside our present purpose I shall only quote a short passage, in which we get some interesting technical expressions relating to gold-mining. After detailing the method of washing soil containing gold by bringing streams of water to bear on it, just as we found the Salassi doing in the valley of the Doria, by which process he says 20,000 lbs. of gold were annually obtained in Asturia, Gallaecia, and Lusitania, he proceeds: “Gold obtained by shafting (arrugia) does not require refining, but is straightway pure. Nuggets of it are found in this way; likewise in pits nuggets are found exceeding ten pounds each. The Spaniards call them palacrae, others palacranae. The same people term the gold dust balux[149].” Here then we have an interesting group of technical terms, arrugia, palacra or palacrana and balux. The latter forms at once remind us of Strabo’s palae (πάλαι), and we can have little doubt that palacra and pala are simply dialectic variants, just as palacrana evidently was considered by Pliny to be a bye-form of palacra. Corssen has sought to find a Latin etymology for arrugia, connecting it with runco, ruga, but it is hardly possible to regard it as otherwise than Spanish, especially as this appears to be the only place where it is found. Balux (also baluca) is undoubtedly a native Iberian term. On Schrader’s principles we might at once argue that as the technical words for gold-mining and for the different kinds of gold are native Spanish words, it is beyond doubt that the Spaniards were acquainted with gold and knew the art of working it before any foreign traders brought that metal to them. Without dogmatizing in this fashion and keeping to our more cautious principles we may say that the evidence of those words is strongly in favour of such a conclusion, unless a Semitic origin be sought for those terms, which is highly improbable. For we know beyond doubt that the Spanish mines were worked for centuries before ever a Roman soldier passed the Ebro. Unless then the technical terms were introduced by the Greeks (which they were not, as Strabo considers pala a native word) or by the Phoenicians, they are ancient Iberic terms connected with gold from its first discovery. We saw that in the Red Sea the first form in which gold was utilized by the Arabs was that of nuggets used as rude beads. The palae of the Iberians may represent the same period of development as well as the same kind of gold. From the traditions given us by the ancient writers there can be little doubt that the art of mining silver was of extremely ancient date in Spain. The founding of Gadeira (Cadiz) is placed at 1100 B.C. and the tradition of Posidonius regards the Phoenician colonies in the west as long posterior to their trading for silver with the rude natives. If this tradition could be relied on, silver must have been known to the Spaniards in the twelfth century B.C. And there is no reason to doubt the story. At Mycenae gold and silver were found along with Baltic amber. The two former prove that amongst the civilized races around the Aegean the precious metals were abundantly used, the latter that the trade routes across Europe from the Baltic and North Sea to the Adriatic were already in use. Accordingly there is no improbability in the supposition that in the twelfth century B.C. the shipmen of Tyre traded for silver to North Eastern Spain as well as to Northern Italy for amber. If the knowledge of silver came so early in Spain, much earlier must that of gold have been.
Let us now take a general survey of the region over which we have travelled. In the far east we had both the literary evidence of the Rig Veda and the evidence of the traditions and legends handed down by the historians to show that well back in the second millennium B.C. the gold deposits of Thibet were known and worked. Silver is as yet unknown to the people of the Rig Veda. Again in the region of the Altai and Oural mountains, the tale of the “Arimaspian pursued by a griffin” pointed to great antiquity for gold-mining in this district; the barbarous Massagetae[150], who occupied the modern Mongolia and Sangaria, were rich in gold; and to the west the Scythians, who used neither silver nor copper, had abundant store of gold. These tribes stretched right across Russia until they touched on the west the Getae and the other tribes of the great Thracian stock. Gold must early have been known throughout all Thrace. Greek tradition and history unite in demonstrating the great antiquity of the first Phoenician gold-seeking in Thasos and on the mainland. The evidence in Greece itself puts it beyond doubt that gold was in use 1500 years B.C. The Balkan Peninsula was occupied on the north-west by Illyrian tribes, some of whom, like the Dardani, dwelt interspersed among the Thracian clans. The Illyrians inhabited all the northern end of the Adriatic, and originally much of the east side of all Italy, although under the pressure of the Umbrians and Kelts they had been almost completely crushed out of the Italian Peninsula, only maintaining themselves in the extreme southeast where the Messapians remained independent of both Italian and Greek alike. The Keltic tribes were their neighbours in Noricum, where they had succeeded the ancient Rhaetian stock, the survivors of which, like the Salassi, had managed to maintain themselves in the fastnesses of the Alps. We found strong evidence that these Rhaetians must long have known the art of working gold, for they had devised elaborate pieces of engineering work for the purpose of developing their gold fields; added to this was the fact that gold as an ornament seems to have been used by the inhabitants of the Swiss lake dwellings in the neolithic age. The Kelts must have been in contact with this people for a considerable time before they ever invaded Italy; again in Spain we found every token of great antiquity in the working of gold and silver. Again, before they invaded Italy, the Kelts must have been long in contact with the Iberians of what in later days was Aquitania, for the Keltic conquest of Northern Spain can hardly be placed later than in the fifth century B.C., and it is most probable that that conquest only took place after long and stubborn struggles. The Kelts too in Southern Gaul must have come in contact with the Ligyes (or Ligurians), whose territory at one time extended from the Iberus (Ebro) along the coast of the Mediterranean to the frontiers of Etruria. The Ligurians had been in touch with the Iberians on their western border; in fact the two races had blended to a considerable degree, and since they had also had communication with Etruscans, Phoenicians and Greeks (with the last from at least 600 B.C., when Massilia was founded in their country), it is impossible to suppose that this people could have remained ignorant of the use of gold. The Kelts thus at every point along their southern front, as they advanced, must have been for centuries in full knowledge of gold before they ever entered Rome. Add to this the fact that when they entered Italy they appear to have brought nothing but their gold ornaments and their cattle, and that in Gaul it had been the habit to dedicate great piles of the precious metal in the sacred precincts of their divinities.