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ROMAN MINING.

CHAP. IV.

cess of the Romans in their wars at home, a littlebefore their first contest with Carthage, had putthem in possession of the scanty mines of centraland upper Italy , and the booty extorted fromthe subdued owners of them furnished the meansof proceeding to other and more distant under-takings.

The success of the two Carthaginian warsdelivered into their hands the most valuable oftheir enemies’ mines in the western part of theAfrican continent, in Sicily, Sardinia , and thesouth of Spain . A few years later, by theirconquests in the east, the mines of Greece andAsia Minor came into their possession ; and thevictory over Perseus , or Perses, at the battle ofPydna (about 168 years before Christ), renderedthem masters of the productive mines of Mace-donia and Thrace . The other mines in the east,in Asia and Egypt , were transferred to the Ro-mans by the successful campaigns of Pompey and Augustus ; and the remainder of those inwestern Europe, in Gaul and northern Spain ,by the victorious arms of Julius Caesar and ofAugustus . Thus the period of nearly three hun-dred years, between the first Punic war and thereign of the first emperor, had witnessed theaggregation of the whole mines in the power ofone supreme and uncontrollable state.

By the laws of antiquity, as exercised amongall the ancient nations, and at a subsequent