Diodorus Siculus — Bibliotheca Historica

Primary-source dossier

The excerpts below are reproduced from the Ictis Anthology — a working paper produced during research for the project. Some of the results were spun off into New Perspectives on the Ictis of Pytheas of Massalia.

Text from: Bill Thayer, LacusCurtius: Diodorus Siculus — Bibliotheca Historica

Book 5 “On the Islands”¹ Chapters 21-23

English

“But since we have set forth the facts concerning the ocean lying off Libya and its islands, we shall now turn our discussion to Europe. Opposite that part of Gaul which lies on the ocean and directly across from the Hercynian Forest, as it is called, which is the largest of any in Europe of which tradition tells us, there are many islands out in the ocean of which the largest is that known as Britain. In ancient times this island remained unvisited by foreign armies; for neither Dionysus, tradition tells us, nor Heracles, nor any other hero or leader made a campaign against it; in our day, however, Gaius Caesar, who has been called a god because of his deeds, was the first man of whom we have record to have conquered the island, and after subduing the Britons he compelled them to pay fixed tributes. But we shall give a detailed account of the events of this conquest in connection with the appropriate period of time, and at present we shall discuss the island and the tin which is found in it.

Britain is triangular in shape, very much as is Sicily, but its sides are not equal. This island stretches obliquely along the coast of Europe, and the point where it is least distant from the mainland, we are told, is the promontory which men call Cantium, and this is about one hundred stades from the land, at the place where the sea has its outlet whereas the second promontory, known as Belerium, is said to be a voyage of four days from the mainland, and the last, writers tell us, extends out into the open sea and is named Orca. Of the sides of Britain the shortest, which extends along Europe, is seven thousand five hundred stades², the second, from the Strait to the (northern) tip, is fifteen thousand stades³, and the last is twenty thousand stades⁴, so that the entire circuit of the island amounts to forty-two thousand five hundred stades. And Britain, we are told, is inhabited by tribes which are autochthonous and preserve in their ways of living the ancient manner of life. They use chariots, for instance, in their wars, even as tradition tells us the old Greek heroes did in the Trojan War, and their dwellings are humble, being built for the most part out of reeds or logs. The method they employ of harvesting their grain crops is to cut off no more than the heads and store them away in roofed granges, and then each day they pick out the ripened heads and grind them, getting in this way their food. As for their habits, they are simple and far removed from the shrewdness and vice which characterize the men of our day. Their way of living is modest, since they are well clear of the luxury which is begotten of wealth.⁵ The island is also thickly populated, and its climate is extremely cold, as one would expect, since it actually lies under the Great Bear. It is held by many kings and potentates, who for the most part live at peace among themselves.

But we shall give a detailed account of the customs of Britain and of the other features which are peculiar to the island when we come to the campaign which Caesar undertook against it, and at this time we shall discuss the tin which the island produces. The inhabitants of Britain who dwell about the promontory known as Belerium are especially hospitable to strangers and have adopted a civilized manner of life because of their intercourse with merchants of other peoples. They it is who work the tin, treating the bed which bears it in an ingenious manner. This bed, being like rock, contains earthy seams and in them the workers quarry the ore, which they then melt down and cleanse of its impurities. Then they work the tin into pieces the size of knuckle-bones⁶ and convey it to an island which lies off Britain and is called Ictis; for at the time of ebb-tide the space between this island and the mainland becomes dry and they can take the tin in large quantities over to the island on their wagons. (And a peculiar thing happens in the case of the neighbouring islands which lie between Europe and Britain, for at flood-tide the passages between them and the mainland run full and they have the appearance of islands, but at ebb-tide the sea recedes and leaves dry a large space, and at that time they look like peninsulas.) On the island of Ictis the merchants purchase the tin of the natives and carry it from there across the Strait to Galatia or Gaul; and finally, making their way on foot through Gaul for some thirty days, they bring their wares on horseback to the mouth of the river Rhone.

But as regards the tin of Britain we shall rest content with what has been said, and we shall now discuss the electron, as it is called (amber). Directly opposite the part of Scythia which lies above Galatia there is an island out in the open sea which is called Basileia. On this island the waves of the sea cast up great quantities of what is known as amber, which is to be seen nowhere else in the inhabited world; and about it many of the ancient writers have composed fanciful tales, such as are altogether difficult to credit and have been refuted by later events.”

Greek (Ch. 22)

Text from: http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/diodore/livre5a.htm

ἀλλὰ περὶ μὲν τῶν κατ´ αὐτὴν νομίμων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἰδιωμάτων τὰ κατὰ μέρος ἀναγράψομεν ὅταν ἐπὶ τὴν Καίσαρος⁷ γενομένην στρατείαν εἰς Πρεττανίαν παραγενηθῶμεν, νῦν δὲ περὶ τοῦ κατ´ αὐτὴν φυομένου καττιτέρου⁸ διέξιμεν. Τῆς γὰρ Πρεττανικῆς κατὰ τὸ ἀκρωτήριον τὸ καλούμενον Βελέριον⁹ οἱ κατοικοῦντες φιλόξενοί τε διαφερόντως εἰσὶ καὶ διὰ τὴν τῶν ξένων ἐμπόρων ἐπιμιξίαν ἐξημερωμένοι τὰς ἀγωγάς. Οὗτοι τὸν καττίτερον κατασκευάζουσι φιλοτέχνως ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν φέρουσαν αὐτὸν γῆν. Αὕτη δὲ πετρώδης οὖσα διαφυὰς ἔχει γεώδεις¹⁰, ἐν αἷς τὸν πόρον κατεργαζόμενοι καὶ τήξαντες καθαίρουσιν. Ἀποτυποῦντες¹¹ δ´ εἰς ἀστραγάλων¹² ῥυθμοὺς¹³ κομίζουσιν¹⁴ εἴς τινα νῆσον προκειμένην μὲν τῆς Πρεττανικῆς, ὀνομαζομένην δὲ Ἴκτιν· κατὰ γὰρ τὰς ἀμπώτεις ἀναξηραινομένου τοῦ μεταξὺ τόπου ταῖς ἁμάξαις εἰς ταύτην κομίζουσι δαψιλῆ τὸν καττίτερον. ἴδιον δέ τι συμβαίνει περὶ τὰς πλησίον νήσους τὰς μεταξὺ κειμένας τῆς τε Εὐρώπης καὶ τῆς Πρεττανικῆς· κατὰ μὲν γὰρ τὰς πλημυρίδας τοῦ μεταξὺ πόρου πληρουμένου νῆσοι φαίνονται, κατὰ δὲ τὰς ἀμπώτεις ἀπορρεούσης τῆς θαλάττης καὶ πολὺν τόπον ἀναξηραινούσης θεωροῦνται χερρόνησοι. Ἐντεῦθεν δ´ οἱ ἔμποροι παρὰ τῶν ἐγχωρίων ὠνοῦνται καὶ διακομίζουσιν εἰς τὴν Γαλατίαν· τὸ δὲ τελευταῖον πεζῇ διὰ τῆς Γαλατίας πορευθέντες ἡμέρας ὡς τριάκοντα κατάγουσιν ἐπὶ τῶν ἵππων τὰ φορτία πρὸς τὴν ἐκβολὴν τοῦ Ῥοδανοῦ¹⁵ ποταμοῦ.

Book 5 Chapter 32

In this short passage, Diodorus somewhat contradicts himself by presenting the British as savages.

“The most savage peoples among them are those who dwell beneath the Bears and on the borders of Scythia, and some of these, we are told, eat human beings, even as the Britons do who dwell on Iris, as it is called.”

Book 5 Chapters 35-38

This is Diodorus’s passage on the Iberian mines. He does not cite sources, however by comparing it with the equivalent chapters in Strabo (who does cite sources) it is possible to identify the work’s derivations. The scale of the mining operations described is qualitatively very different in scale and detail to those of the British tin industry.

Diodorus concludes with an account of tin mining in Iberia, and even compares it to that of Britain. He states that tin in Iberia was worked underground whilst that in Britain was at surface; presumably lode mining vs streaming. He finally adds a little extra detail to the British tin industry; stating that not only Marseilles but also Narbonne was a Roman tin port on the Mediterranean, and that the route by which British tin arrived there was directly overland and not by boat to the Straight of Gibraltar.

Diodorus describes the Spanish mines as “the most abundant and most excellent known sources of silver”.

“Since we have set forth the facts concerning the Iberians, we think that it will not be foreign to our purpose to discuss the silver mines of the land; for this land possesses, we may venture to say, the most abundant and most excellent known sources of silver, and to the workers of this silver it returns great revenues. Now in the preceding Books which told of the achievements of Heracles we have mentioned the mountains in Iberia which are known as the Pyrenees. Both in height and in size these mountains are found to excel all others; for they stretch from the southern sea practically as far as the northern ocean and extend for some three thousand stades, dividing Gaul from Iberia and Celtiberia. And since they contain many thick and deep forests, in ancient times, we are told, certain herdsmen left a fire and the whole area of the mountains was entirely consumed; and due to this fire, since it raged continuously day after day, the surface of the earth was also burned and the mountains, because of what had taken place, were called the Pyrenees; furthermore, the surface of the burned land ran with much silver and, since the elementary substance out of which the silver is worked was melted down, there were formed many streams of pure silver¹⁶. Now the natives were ignorant of the use of the silver, and the Phoenicians, as they pursued their commercial enterprises and learned of what had taken place, purchased the silver in exchange for other wares of little if any worth.¹⁷ And this was the reason why the Phoenicians, as they transported this silver to Greece and Asia and to all other peoples, acquired great wealth. So far indeed did the merchants go in their greed that, in case their boats were fully laden and there still remained a great amount of silver, they would hammer the lead off the anchors and have the silver perform the service of the lead.¹⁸ And the result was that the Phoenicians, as in the course of many years they prospered greatly, thanks to commerce of this kind, sent forth many colonies, some to Sicily and its neighbouring islands, and others to Libya, Sardinia, and Iberia.¹⁹

But at a much later time the Iberians, having come to know the peculiar qualities possessed by silver, sunk notable mines, and as a consequence, by working the most excellent and, we may say, the most abundant silver to be found, they received great revenues.²⁰ The manner, then, in which the Iberians mine and work the silver is in part as follows. The mines being marvellous in their deposits of copper and gold and silver, the workers of the copper mines recover from the earth they dig out a fourth part of pure copper²¹, and among the unskilled workers in silver there are some who will take out a Euboic talent in three days; for all the ore is full of solid silver-dust which gleams forth from it. Consequently a man may well be filled with wonder both at the nature of the region and at the diligence displayed by the men who labour there. Now at first unskilled labourers, whoever might come, carried on the working of the mines, and these men took great wealth away with them, since the silver-bearing earth was convenient at hand and abundant; but at a later time, after the Romans had made themselves masters of Iberia,²² a multitude of Italians have swarmed to the mines and taken great wealth away with them, such was their greed. For they purchase a multitude of slaves whom they turn over to the overseers of the working of the mines; and these men, opening shafts in a number of places and digging deep into the ground, seek out the seams of earth which are rich in silver and gold; and not only do they go into the ground a great distance, but they also push their diggings many stades in depth and run galleries off at every angle, turning this way and that, in this manner bringing up from the depths the ore which gives them the profit they are seeking.²³

Great also is the contrast these mines show when they are compared with those of Attica²⁴. The men, that is, who work the Attic mines, although they have expended large sums on the undertakings, yet “Now and then, what they hoped to get, they did not get, and what they had, they lost,” so that it would appear that they met with misfortune in a kind of riddle; but the exploiters of the mines of Spain, in their hopes, amass great wealth from their undertakings²⁵. For their first labours are remunerative, thanks to the excellent quality of the earth for this sort of thing, and they are ever coming upon more splendid veins, rich in both silver and gold; for all the ground in that region is a tangled network of veins which wind in many ways.²⁶ And now and then, as they go down deep, they come upon flowing subterranean rivers, but they overcome the might of these rivers by diverting the streams which flow in on them by means of channels leading off at an angle. For being urged on as they are by expectations of gain, which indeed do not deceive them, they push each separate undertaking to its conclusion, and what is the most surprising thing of all, they draw out the waters of the streams they encounter by means of what is called by men the Egyptian screw, which was invented by Archimedes of Syracuse at the time of his visit to Egypt; and by the use of such screws they carry the water in successive lifts as far as the entrance, drying up in this way the spot where they are digging²⁷ and making it well suited to the furtherance of their operations. Since this machine is an exceptionally ingenious device, an enormous amount of water is thrown out, to one’s astonishment, by means of a trifling amount of labour, and all the water from such rivers is brought up easily from the depths and poured out on the surface. And a man may well marvel at the inventiveness of the craftsman, in connection not only with this invention but with many other greater ones as well, the fame of which has encompassed the entire inhabited world and of which we shall give a detailed and precise account when we come to the period of Archimedes.²⁸

But to continue with the mines, the slaves who are engaged in the working of them produce for their masters revenues in sums defying belief, but they themselves wear out their bodies both by day and by night in the diggings under the earth, dying in large numbers because of the exceptional hardships they endure. For no respite or pause is granted them in their labours, but compelled beneath blows of the overseers to endure the severity of their plight, they throw away their lives in this wretched manner, although certain of them who can endure it, by virtue of their bodily strength and their persevering souls, suffer such hardships over a long period; indeed death in their eyes is more to be desired than life, because of the magnitude of the hardships they must bear. And although many are the astounding features connected with the mining just described, a man may wonder not the least at the fact that not one of the mines has a recent beginning, but all of them were opened by the covetousness of the Carthaginians at the time when Iberia was among their possessions.²⁹ It was from these mines, that is, that they drew their continued growth, hiring the ablest mercenaries to be found and winning with their aid many and great wars. For it is in general true that in their wars the Carthaginians never rested their confidence in soldiers from among their own citizens or gathered from their allies, but that when they subjected the Romans and the Sicilians and the inhabitants of Libya to the greatest perils it was by money, thanks to the abundance of it which they derived from their mines, that they conquered them in every instance.³⁰ For the Phoenicians, it appears, were from ancient times clever men in making discoveries to their gain, and the Italians are equally clever in leaving no gain to anyone else.³¹

Tin also occurs in many regions of Iberia, not found, however, on the surface of the earth³², as certain writers³³ continually repeat in their histories, but dug out of the ground and smelted in the same manner as silver and gold. For there are many mines of tin in the country above Lusitania and on the islets which lie off Iberia out in the ocean and are called because of that fact the Cassiterides.³⁴ And tin is brought in large quantities also from the island of Britain to the opposite Gaul, where it is taken by merchants on horses through the interior of Celtica both to the Massalians and to the city of Narbo, as it is called.³⁵ This city is a colony of the Romans, and because of its convenient situation it possesses the finest market to be found in those regions.”³⁶