Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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    <archimedes>
      <text>
        <body>
          <chap>
            <p type="main">
              <s>
                <pb pagenum="17"/>
              although these attacks against gold and silver may be directed especially
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              against money, yet inasmuch as the Poets one after another condemn it,
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              their criticism must be met, and this can be done by one argument alone.
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              </s>
              <s>Money is good for those who use it well; it brings loss and evil to those who
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              use it ill. </s>
              <s>Hence, very rightly, Horace says:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“Dost thou not know the value of money; and what uses it serves?</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>It buys bread, vegetables, and a pint of wine.”</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>And again in another place:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“Wealth hoarded up is the master or slave of each possessor; it
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              should follow rather than lead, the ‘twisted rope.’ ”
                <emph type="sup"/>
              23
                <emph.end type="sup"/>
              </s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>When ingenious and clever men considered carefully the system of barter,
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              which ignorant men of old employed and which even to-day is used by
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              certain uncivilised and barbarous races, it appeared to them so troublesome
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              and laborious that they invented money. </s>
              <s>Indeed, nothing more useful
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              could have been devised, because a small amount of gold and silver is of as
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              great value as things cumbrous and heavy; and so peoples far distant from one
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              another can, by the use of money, trade very easily in those things which
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              civilised life can scarcely do without.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>The curses which are uttered against iron, copper, and lead have no
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              weight with prudent and sensible men, because if these metals were done
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              away with, men, as their anger swelled and their fury became unbridled,
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              would assuredly fight like wild beasts with fists, heels, nails, and teeth.
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              </s>
              <s>They would strike each other with sticks, hit one another with stones, or
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              dash their foes to the ground. </s>
              <s>Moreover, a man does not kill another with
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              iron alone, but slays by means of poison, starvation, or thirst. </s>
              <s>He may
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              seize him by the throat and strangle him; he may bury him alive in the
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              ground; he may immerse him in water and suffocate him; he may burn
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              or hang him; so that he can make every element a participant in the death
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              of men. </s>
              <s>Or, finally, a man may be thrown to the wild beasts. </s>
              <s>Another
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              may be sewn up wholly except his head in a sack, and thus be left to be
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              devoured by worms; or he may be immersed in water until he is torn to
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              pieces by sea-serpents. </s>
              <s>A man may be boiled in oil; he may be greased,
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              tied with ropes, and left exposed to be stung by flies and hornets; he may
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              be put to death by scourging with rods or beating with cudgels, or struck
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              down by stoning, or flung from a high place. </s>
              <s>Furthermore, a man
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              may be tortured in more ways than one without the use of metals; as when
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              the executioner burns the groins and armpits of his victim with hot wax;
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              or places a cloth in his mouth gradually, so that when in breathing he
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              draws it slowly into his gullet, the executioner draws it back suddenly and
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              violently; or the victim's hands are fastened behind his back, and he is
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              drawn up little by little with a rope and then let down suddenly. </s>
              <s>Or
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              similarly, he may be tied to a beam and a heavy stone fastened by a
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              cord to his feet, or finally his limbs may be torn asunder. </s>
              <s>From these
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              examples we see that it is not metals that are to be condemned, but our
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              vices, such as anger, cruelty, discord, passion for power, avarice, and lust.</s>
            </p>
          </chap>
        </body>
      </text>
    </archimedes>
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