Roman gold mining

Pliny: "Gold in our part of the world ... is found in three ways: first, in river deposits. ... No gold is more refined, for it is thoroughly polished by the very flow of the stream and by wear. The other methods are to mine it in excavated shafts or to look for it in the debris of undermined mountains." Placer deposits are the easiest and first to be exploited. Where the Romans recognized ores on the surface, they followed them into the ground by strip-mining. Opencast was used for many metals. Deep-vein mining was the most difficult and dangerous. Only gold and silver were valuable enough to justify this kind of mining.

'Ruina montium' was the Roman method to systematically dismantle entire mountainsides. Water was used to collapse large sections of a mountain to extract the gold and silver it contained.

Las Médulas is an otherworldly landscape in northwestern Spain that served as the largest and most important open-pit gold mine in the Roman Empire. Located near the town of Ponferrada in the El Bierzo region (province of León), the site is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Las Médulas mine operated for about 250 years, from 25 BC until the 3rd century AD. Roman engineers built over 700 kilometers of canals to divert water into massive, elevated reservoirs. Upwards of 60,000 slaves tunneled into the core of the mountains. Water was abruptly released through sluice gates into the networks of cavities. The hydraulic pressure caused catastrophic landslides, tearing the mountain apart. The collapsed material was washed down inclined channels to isolate the gold.

Rock-cut aqueduct in La Cabrera.

Pliny the Elder witnessed and described the site in full operation around 74–77 AD. The Romans abandoned the mine in the 3rd century AD as the gold ran out. Las Médulas yielded an estimated 1,500 tons of gold. Pliny stated that 20,000 Roman pounds (6,560 kg) of gold were extracted each year.

Today a kilo of Au is $135k giving $855,600,000

Removing rock was a difficult and time-consuming process in Roman mines. Iron was used for most tools, though stone hammers and wedges have been recovered. Wood was used for buckets to remove ore. Remains of wooden ladders have been found. Leather sacks, miners' sandals and caps have been recovered.

It was labour intensive work: "those individuals of outstanding physical strength break up the quartz rock with iron hammers, applying to the work not skill, but force". Shafts were vertical or inclined passages that provided access, ventilation, and a path for ore removal. They were normally square, small (1-2 meters square), and braced with wood to prevent collapse.

The deep mine workings created problems with ventilation, lighting, and drainage. The Romans knew the dangers. The huge state-controlled operations relied heavily on slaves, prisoners of war, and condemned criminals. Life expectancy of a Roman miner was short. Most enslaved laborers sent to the mines were essentially given a death sentence. Virtually none survived 5 years of brutal conditions marked by physical exhaustion, poor diet, harsh punishments, and regular fatal accidents.

Emperor Postumus aureus brings $189k

Topping the sale at a recent Nomos 471-lot public auction May 31 in Zürich was a gold aureus of Romano-Gallic Emperor Postumus, A.D. 260 to 269 that remains virtually as struck. It brought a hammer price of 150,000 Swiss francs. ($189,924 U.S.) Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus founded the Gallic Empire (260–274 CE), a breakaway state comprising Gaul, Britain, and Hispania. Proclaimed emperor by his Rhine legions, Postumus assumed the title and powers of Emperor. He ruled for the better part of a decade, defending the frontier from Germanic tribes. He was killed by his own troops in 269 CE after refusing to let them sack Mainz.

The year 268 saw the issuing of the 'Labours of Hercules' series of coins in honour of Postumus's favourite god. A sudden large debasement of his coinage later that year shows that Postumus was facing increasing financial pressure, probably due to a sharp decline of silver and gold production from Spanish mines. The need to buy off an increasingly discontented army compounded those problems.

Sword of Damocles

The 'Sword of Damocles' is a famous ancient metaphor used to describe the always present danger that accompanies power.

Damocles is a character who appears in a anecdote referred to as "the Sword of Damocles." This refers to the imminent peril faced by those in positions of power. Damocles was a courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a 4th-century BC ruler. Damocles was pandering to Dionysius, and exclaimed to him that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day. Damocles eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Dionysius, who had many enemies, had a huge sword above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail. Dionysius did this to evoke the sense of what it's like to be king: though having fortune, always having to watch in fear and anxiety against dangers that might try to take it away.

Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power also comes great danger.

Leadership lessons from Julius Caesar

After a 5 day war with Pharnacles II of Pontus, Caesar wrote a report to Rome detailing his conquest. The commander didn't go into much detail, writing: "I came, I saw, I conquered." The sound bite proved so catchy that we still remember it to this day.

Crossing the Rubicon River with an army was a declaration of war. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon on January 10, 49 BC, he risked all. Suetonius writes that Caesar quoted an Athenian playwright as he crossed the river, declaring "the die is cast."

Caesar wrote that "in war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes."In his chronicle of the Gallic Wars, Caesar concludes that: "in most cases men willingly believe what they wish" describing a tactical mistake of his Gallic enemies.

Caesar writes: "The immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances." As a young man, Julius Caesar was abducted by pirates. When the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty.

Caesar went on to promise the pirates that he'd personally kill them once he was free. After he was ransomed, he raised a fleet, hunted them down, and did exactly what he had promised.

Legio XIII Gemina

Legio XIII Gemina was one of the most celebrated military units of the Roman Army.

It was famous for its pivotal role in Julius Caesar’s rise to power. Formed in 57 BC to fight in the Gallic Wars, this is the legion that marched across the Rubicon River with Caesar in 49 BC, an act of defiance that sparked the Roman Civil War. The 13th remained loyal to Caesar.

Legio XIII was active throughout the entire war, fighting at Dyrrhachium (48 BC) and Pharsalus (48 BC). After the decisive victory over Pompey at Pharsalus, the legion was to be disbanded, and the legionaries "pensioned off" with land grants. The legion was recalled for the Battle of Thapsus (46 BC) and the final Battle of Munda (45 BC). After Munda, Caesar disbanded the legion, retired his veterans, and gave them farmland in their native Italy.

Augustus reconstituted the legion once again in 41 BC to deal with the rebellion of Sextus Pompeius (son of Pompey) in Sicily. Legio XIII acquired the cognomen Gemina ("twin") after being reinforced with veteran legionaries from other legions following the war against Mark Antony and the Battle of Actium. After the disaster of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, the legion was sent as reinforcements. In the year of the four emperors 69 AD, XIII Gemina supported first Otho and then Vespasian against Vitellius, fighting in the two Battles of Bedriacum. Under Trajan the legion took part in both Dacian wars (101–102, 105–106), and it was transferred by Trajan in 106 to the newly conquered province of Dacia.

Last reports come from the 5th century, where a legio tertiadecima gemina was stationed in Babylon. An archaeological excavation of an elementary school in Vienna in 2024 uncovered bricks bearing the stamp of the 13th Legion Gemina. From the 2nd century, They were likely the broken remnants of pilae stacks, the pillars of brick used to raise the floor for a hypocaust heating system.

Elagabalus

Elagabalus was related to the Severan dynasty. He was Roman emperor from 218 to 222. He came from a prominent Arab family in Emesa (Homs), Syria.

Elagabalus is considered among the worst Roman emperors, although he wasn't as bloody as the rest. In his youth he served as priest of the sun god Elagabal. After the death of his cousin Caracalla in 218, Elagabalus was raised to the principate at age 14 in an army revolt instigated by his grandmother Julia Maesa against Caracalla's short-lived successor, Macrinus. Elagabalus was assassinated and replaced by his cousin Severus Alexander in March 222.

Elagabalus quickly gained a reputation for eccentricity, moral decadence, zealotry and sexual proclivity and perversion.

His assassination was again plotted by Julia Maesa and carried out by the Praetorian Guard. Elagabalus 218-222 CE gold aureus. On the reverse is a stunning scene with a quadriga moving left to right bearing the stone of Emesa with an eagle cresting the stone. The legend reads “SANCT DEO SOLI ELAGABAL” ('To the Holy Sun God El-Gabel'). This example is one of two of this type known to exist.

Ancients regarded stones that fell from the sky as manifestations of the divine. The Syrian town of Emesa (now Homs) had a temple enshrining a conical black stone that was likely a meteorite. Elagabalus' first official act was to transfer the sacred rock to Rome’s main temple, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. Elagabalus disregarded Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos. He replaced the head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with the deity Elagabal. His behavior outraged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate, and the common people.

Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – March 235), also known as Alexander Severus, was Roman emperor from 222 until 235. The last emperor from the Severan dynasty, he succeeded Elagabalus in 222, at the age of 13. Alexander was also assassinated. His death at age 26 marked the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the further collapse of the monetary economy.

Antoninus Pius

Antoninus Pius, also known as Antoninus, was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty.

138-161 AD. Aureus, 7.30g. Rome, 140-4 CE

Born into a senatorial family, Antoninus held various offices during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. He is remembered by history as a kind, just, and wise emperor. Antoninus Pius was an “Adopted Emperor”, where succession was a conscious decision, not a birthright. After the death of Hadrian’s first adopted son, Lucius Aelius, on February 25, 138 CE, Antoninus was formally adopted by Hadrian. It was agreed that he would be made emperor with the provision that he would, in turn, adopt Marcus Aurelius.

About A.D. 141 Antoninus Pius ordered the Roman frontier to be pushed northward. A gold aureus alludes to his victory in Britain. The coin was struck circa 143 to 144 A.D., at the Rome Mint. The campaign was successful, establishing the 39-mile-long Antonine Wall some 99 miles north of Hadrian’s wall. The Senate acclaimed Antoninus as Imperator in A.D. 143 for the second time. This coin marks that event, with its depiction of winged Victory holding a trophy symbolizing military success. The aureus made $7,000.

His humanitarian efforts were significant, and he was loved by the Roman people. Antoninus Pius died in his sleep at the age of 74. His successor Marcus Aurelius spoke very highly of Antoninus: “Remember his qualities, so that when your last hour comes your conscience may be as clear as his.” His last spoken word was “aequanimitas”, meaning equanimity – mental calmness and composure.

Battle of Lugdunum - Clodius Albinus

The Battle of Lugdunum was fought on 19 February 197 at Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France), between the armies of Septimius Severus and Claudius Albinus. Severus' victory established him as the sole emperor of the Roman Empire following the Year of the Five Emperors. The battle was the largest, most hard-fought, and bloodiest of all the clashes between Roman forces. Some 150,000 soldiers took part.

In 196, after being hailed as emperor by his troops, Clodius Albinus took 40,000 men in three legions from Britannia to Gaul. After gathering up more men, he set up headquarters at Lugdunum. On 19 February 197 the battle began. Both sides were roughly evenly matched and it was a bloody, drawn-out affair lasting over two days. (it was rare for battles of this era to last longer than a few hours). The tide shifted many times during the course of the battle, with the outcome hanging in the balance. Severus had an edge in reserves of cavalry, which swung the final stages of the battle in his favour.

A top NGC-graded Clodius Albinus AD 195-197 gold aureus graded NGC Ch XF★, 5/5 Strike and 5/5 Surface. Estimated at $200k, the coin made $275k. Albinus fled into Lugdunum where he took his own life. Severus had Albinus' body stripped and beheaded. He rode over the headless corpse with his horse in front of his victorious troops. Severus sent Albinus's head back to Rome as a warning. He had Albinus's body and those of his wife and sons thrown into the Rhone River.

Lucius Novius Rufus, who had supported Albinus, was killed. Severus also had 29 senators who supported Albinus executed.

Julian II

Julian II ruled as Roman emperor from November 3, 361 CE until his death on June 26, 363. He was a successful military commander who waged one of the largest campaigns of Roman history against the Sassanid Empire. Julian II is notable for being the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire.

Julian II. AV Solidus. Antioch mint. Choice EF. $7,500 in 2007.

Christian writers referred to him as “Julian the Apostate” as he had been raised a Christian. Toleration for Christianity turned to suppression and persecution under Julian II. Pagans were openly preferred for official appointments, and they were expelled from the army. Motivated by a desire for glory, Julian assembled the largest Roman army (65,000 strong and backed by a fleet) to wage war against Persia. The Roman's early victories led them deep into hostile lands. During a disastrous retreat from the walls of Ctesiphon, (below modern Baghdad), Julian was wounded by a spear thrown “no one knew whence” which pierced his liver.

He died the next night at age 31, having been emperor for 20 months. With his death, the last hope for a renaissance of non-Christian faiths within the Roman Empire ended. Since Julian had no successor, an officer who commanded the imperial bodyguard named Jovian was chosen by the army as the new emperor. With the army trapped far in enemy territory, Jovian was forced to negotiate a humiliating peace.

On his way back to Constantinople in the winter of 364, Jovian, 33, died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to an unmaintained charcoal brazier used to heat his sleeping quarters. Jovian. AD 363-364. AV Solidus. Superb EF, lustrous, faint roughness on cheek, small edge scuff. Rare. Estimate $7500. Sold for $9500.

The Bunnik hoard

44 gold staters were discovered with 360 Roman coins by metal detectorists in a field in Bunnik, near Utrecht Netherlands in 2023.

Included were 72 gold aurei, dated between 18 B.C. and 47 A.D. The Roman gold exhibits little wear, suggesting they were freshly minted.

Claudius. AD 41-54. AV Aureus. Rome mint. Struck AD 46-47. Good VF. Est $7500, sold for $20,000

Most of the hoard are Roman coins dating between 46 and 47 A.D., a period marking the end of the first Roman conquests in Britain. Many bear the image of Emperor Claudius, who was crucial in expanding the empire’s reach into the British Isles. Some of the nearly 300 silver denarii date as far back as 200 B.C.

Saters bearing the inscription of King Cunobelin were very likely the spoils of war of Roman soldiers from the conquest of Britain. Celtic king Cunobelinus reigned between AD 5 and AD 40 in the south-east of Britain. Four of the staters are posthumous issues, probably struck by Cunobelinus’s successors as ruler of the Catuvellauni tribe, the brothers Togodumnus and Caratacus, around AD 43. The hoard would have represented a huge fortune in it's time.

The most recent coins in the hoard were struck in AD 46-47, and bear the portrait of the emperor Claudius. The area where the coins were discovered was a site from which the Romans had prepared for first crossing to Britain. It was also an area to which the conquering troops returned to the mainland. The wide chronological range of the coins suggests they are spoils from the early Roman conquest of Britain under the general Aulus Plautius (AD 43-47). The coins may have been distributed to the army as a donativum, a bonus paid for a successful campaign.

Britain consisted of several separate kingdoms before Claudius ordered Aulus Plautius to invade with a force of four legions reinforced by auxiliary. The Romans landed at Richborough, Kent and were met a large army of Britons under the Catuvellauni kings Caratacus and his brother Togodumnus, on the River Medway.

Spearheaded by Legio II Augusta under Vespasian, some 45,000 Romans invaded, crossed the Medway River and defeated the Britons.