Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/236

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222
STRABO.
CASAUB. 217.

substance of what [Posidonius] tells us concerning the mines [of Iberia].

10. Polybius, speaking of the silver mines of New Carthage,[p 1] tells us that they are extremely large, distant from the city about 20 stadia, and occupy a circuit of 400 stadia, that there are 40,000 men regularly engaged in them, and that they yield daily to the Roman people [a revenue of] 25,000 drachmæ. The rest of the process I pass over, as it is too long, but as for the silver ore collected, he tells us that it is broken up, and sifted through sieves over water; that what remains is to be again broken, and the water having been strained off, it is to be sifted and broken a third time. The dregs which remain after the fifth time are to be melted, and the lead being poured off, the silver is obtained pure. These silver mines still exist; however they are no longer the property of the state, neither these nor those elsewhere, but are possessed by private individuals. The gold mines, on the contrary, nearly all belong to the state. Both at Castlon[p 2] and other places there are singular lead mines worked. They contain a small proportion of silver, but not sufficient to pay for the expense of refining.

11. Not far from Castlon is the mountain in which they report that the [river] Guadalquiver[p 3] takes its rise. They call it silver mountain on account of the silver mines which it contains.[p 4] Polybius asserts that both the Guadiana[p 5] and this river have their sources in Keltiberia, notwithstanding they are separated from each other by a distance of 900 stadia;[1] [this we are to attribute to] the Keltiberians having increased in power, and having consequently conferred their name on the surrounding country. It appears the ancients knew the Guadalquiver under the name of the Tartessus, and Gades[p 6] with the neighbouring islands under that of Erythia; and it is thought that we should understand in this sense the words of Stesichorus[2] concerning the pastoral poet Geryon, that he was born

  1. ↑ Carthagena.
  2. ↑ Caslona.
  3. ↑ Bætis.
  4. ↑ The Sierra Cazorla.
  5. ↑ Anas.
  6. ↑ Cadiz.
  1. ↑ These 900 stadia are equal to from 25 to 26 leagues, which is exactly the distance from the sources of the Guadalquiver near to Cazorla to the lagoons named Ojos de Guadiana, adjacent to Villa-Harta.
  2. ↑ A Greek poet born at Himera in Sicily, and who flourished about B. C. 570: he lived in the time of Phalaris, and was contemporary with Sappho, Alcæus, and Pittacus.
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