Agricola, Georgius
,
De re metallica
,
1912/1950
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which they say nothing more pernicious could have been brought into the
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life of man. </
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<
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>For it is employed in making swords, javelins, spears, pikes,
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arrows—weapons by which men are wounded, and which cause slaughter,
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robbery, and wars. </
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<
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>These things so moved the wrath of Pliny that he wrote:
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“Iron is used not only in hand to hand fighting, but also to form the winged
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missiles of war, sometimes for hurling engines, sometimes for lances, some
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times even for arrows. </
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>I look upon it as the most deadly fruit of human
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ingenuity. </
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>For to bring Death to men more quickly we have given wings to
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iron and taught it to fly.”
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19
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The spear, the arrow from the bow, or the bolt
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from the catapult and other engines can be driven into the body of only one
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man, while the iron cannon-ball fired through the air, can go through the
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bodies of many men, and there is no marble or stone object so hard that it
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cannot be shattered by the force and shock. </
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<
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>Therefore it levels the highest
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towers to the ground, shatters and destroys the strongest walls. </
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<
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>Certainly
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the ballistas which throw stones, the battering rams and other ancient war
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engines for making breaches in walls of fortresses and hurling down strong
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holds, seem to have little power in comparison with our present cannon.
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>These emit horrible sounds and noises, not less than thunder, flashes
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of fire burst from them like the lightning, striking, crushing, and shatter
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ing buildings, belching forth flames and kindling fires even as lightning
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flashes. </
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<
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>So that with more justice could it be said of the impious men of
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our age than of Salmoneus of ancient days, that they had snatched lightning
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from Jupiter and wrested it from his hands. </
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<
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>Nay, rather there has been
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sent from the infernal regions to the earth this force for the destruction of
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men, so that Death may snatch to himself as many as possible by one stroke.</
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<
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>But because muskets are nowadays rarely made of iron, and the large
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ones never, but of a certain mixture of copper and tin, they confer more
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maledictions on copper and tin than on iron. </
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<
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>In this connection too, they
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mention the brazen bull of Phalaris, the brazen ox of the people of Per
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gamus, racks in the shape of an iron dog or a horse, manacles, shackles,
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wedges, hooks, and red-hot plates. </
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>Cruelly racked by such instruments,
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people are driven to confess crimes and misdeeds which they have never
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committed, and innocent men are miserably tortured to death by every
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conceivable kind of torment.</
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<
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>It is claimed too, that lead is a pestilential and noxious metal, for men
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are punished by means of molten lead, as Horace describes in the ode
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addressed to the Goddess Fortune: “Cruel Necessity ever goes before thee
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bearing in her brazen hand the spikes and wedges, while the awful hook and
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molten lead are also not lacking.”
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20
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In their desire to excite greater odium
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for this metal, they are not silent about the leaden balls of muskets, and they
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find in it the cause of wounds and death.</
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<
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>They contend that, inasmuch as Nature has concealed metals far within
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the depths of the earth, and because they are not necessary to human life,
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they are therefore despised and repudiated by the noblest, and should not be
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