Imperial Mines and Quarries in the Roman World: Organizational Aspects 27 BC-AD 235

566 Pages·2010·9.94 MB·English

by  Alfred Michael Hirt

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Imperial Mines and
Quarries in the
Roman World
bc ad
Organizational Aspects 27 – 235
ALFRED MICHAEL HIRT
1
3
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Preface
Romanminesandquarrieshaveemergedinrecentyearsasatopicofstudyby
scholarsinterestedintheRomaneconomy.Archaeologistsinparticularhave
directed their attention to specific mining sites like Las Me´dulas, Rofisia
Montana˘, and Dolaucothi, or offered detailed analysis of quarrying sites
such as Gebel Dokhan, Gebel Fatirah, or Chemtou. These archaeological
studies set aside, numerous finds of Latin and Greek inscriptions on stone
monuments, quarried items, ingots, or bronze tablets, as well as writing
tablets, ostraca, and papyri provide additional insights but have been pub-
lisheddisparately.Themainaimofthisstudyistounitethevarioussnippets
of information with respect to their archaeological and historical context in
order to gain an overview of various aspects of the internal organization of
miningandquarryingventuresunderimperialcontrolandtheirplacewithin
theadministrativeframeworkoftheRomanempire.
An initial version of this study was submitted as a DPhil thesis at Oxford
Universityin2004.Thethesisasawholewasreworkedinthefollowingyears
inordertoincludeadditionalmaterialandcompletedinlate2007.Thestudy
owes much to numerous discussions with Michael A. Speidel who freely
shared his profound insights into the workings of the Roman empire; and
toHeinzE.HerzigwhoattheUniversityofBernecreatedtheidealacademic
environment and supported this endeavour from the beginning. At Oxford,
my supervisor Andrew Wilson pointed the reluctant ancient historian to-
wards the relevancy of the archaeological data and offered superb advice on
manyofitsaspects.ManymoreatOxfordcontributed(knowinglyornot)to
thegenesisofthisstudy.AlanBowmanandDavidMattinglyprovidedhelpful
commentsonthethesisandencouragedpublicationofthework,Alantaking
onthetime-consumingtaskofcorrectingadraftversion.Furtherthanksmust
go to J. J. Coulton and Nicholas Purcell, Bill Leadbetter, Adam Bu¨low-
Jacobsen, Michael Crawford, Peter Herz, Stefanie Martin-Kilcher, for advice
and bits and pieces of helpful information. Caillan Davenport, Caroline
Brehaut, Charlotte Walden, Lesley Cousins, and, last but not least, Oskar
Kaelin,readthetextsatdifferentstagesandimproveditbyeradicatingvarious
remnantsofmy‘Helvetic’syntax.GalinaRusakandColinHugheshelpedme
with the index and Kathleen Fearn and Abigail Coulson at OUP turned the
submittedtextintothetypescriptpresentedhere.Anyremainingmistakesare
ofcoursemine.AdamBu¨low-Jacobsen’s‘MonsClaudianusOstracagraecaet
latinaIV’(2009)waspublishedtoolatetobeincludedinthissurvey.
viii Preface
My stay at Oxford was made possible by generous grants by the Swiss
National Fund, the Janggen-Po¨ehn Stiftung in St Gallen, Switzerland, the
Ka´rma´n-StiftungoftheUniversityofBerne,Switzerland.
Finally,Iwouldwishtothankmyparents,theextendedHirt-Bolligerclan,
andmyfriendswhoenduredmygravaminaandofferedtheirencouragement
andsupport.
A.M.H.
Contents
ListofIllustrations xi
ListofAbbreviations xii
1. Introduction 1
2. GeologicalConstraintsandOrganizationalImplications 10
2.1 ImperialQuarries 10
2.2 ImperialMines 32
2.3 Summary 46
3. MiningandQuarryingDistricts 48
3.1 Metallumandterritoriametallorum 48
3.2 MiningandQuarryingDistricts 51
3.3 TheLegalNatureofmetallaandterritoriametallorum 82
3.4 Summary 106
4. ImperialOfficialsandExtractiveOperations 107
4.1 Procurators 107
4.2 SubalternOfficials 149
4.3 ‘Headquarters’ofImperialExtractiveOperations 159
4.4 Summary 165
5. TheRomanArmyandImperialExtractiveOperations 168
5.1 TheRomanArmyandImperialQuarries 168
5.2 TheRomanArmyandImperialMines 185
5.3 TheRomanArmyandExtractiveOperations 196
6. ImperialOfficialsandtheAllocationofResponsibilities 202
6.1 Procurators 202
6.2 SubalternStaff 251
6.3 TheFunctionofProcuratorsandImperialPersonnel 258
7. PrivatePartnerstoImperialOperations:Occupatores/Coloni
andConductores 261
7.1 Mines,occupatores/coloniandconductores 261
7.2 QuarryLabelsandQuarryingContractors 290