Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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    <archimedes>
      <text>
        <body>
          <chap>
            <p type="main">
              <s>
                <pb pagenum="10"/>
              poured liquid gold into the gaping mouth of the slain Crassus, saying:
                <lb/>
              “Thou hast thirsted for gold, therefore drink gold.”</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>But why need I cite here these many examples from history?
                <emph type="sup"/>
              17
                <emph.end type="sup"/>
              It is
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              almost our daily experience to learn that, for the sake of obtaining gold and
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              silver, doors are burst open, walls are pierced, wretched travellers are struck
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              down by rapacious and cruel men born to theft, sacrilege, invasion, and
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              robbery. </s>
              <s>We see thieves seized and strung up before us, sacrilegious persons
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              burnt alive, the limbs of robbers broken on the wheel, wars waged for the
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              same reason, which are not only destructive to those against whom they are
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              waged, but to those also who carry them on. </s>
              <s>Nay, but they say that the
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              precious metals foster all manner of vice, such as the seduction of women,
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              adultery, and unchastity, in short, crimes of violence against the person.
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              </s>
              <s>Therefore the Poets, when they represent Jove transformed into a golden
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              shower and falling into the lap of Danae, merely mean that he had found
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              for himself a safe road by the use of gold, by which he might enter the tower
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              for the purpose of violating the maiden. </s>
              <s>Moreover, the fidelity of many
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              men is overthrown by the love of gold and silver, judicial sentences are
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              bought, and innumerable crimes are perpetrated. </s>
              <s>For truly, as Propertius
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              says:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“This is indeed the Golden Age. </s>
              <s>The greatest rewards come from
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              gold; by gold love is won; by gold is faith destroyed; by gold is justice
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              bought; the law follows the track of gold, while modesty will soon
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              follow it when law is gone.”</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>Diphilus says:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“I consider that nothing is more powerful than gold. </s>
              <s>By it all
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              things are torn asunder; all things are accomplished.”</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>Therefore, all the noblest and best despise these riches, deservedly and
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              with justice, and esteem them as nothing. </s>
              <s>And this is said by the old man
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              in Plautus:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“I hate gold. </s>
              <s>It has often impelled many people to many wrong
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              acts.”</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>In this country too, the poets inveigh with stinging reproaches against money
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              coined from gold and silver. </s>
              <s>And especially did Juvenal:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“Since the majesty of wealth is the most sacred thing among us;
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              although, O pernicious money, thou dost not yet inhabit a temple, nor
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              have we erected altars to money.”</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>And in another place:</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>“Demoralising money first introduced foreign customs, and
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              voluptuous wealth weakened our race with disgraceful luxury.”
                <emph type="sup"/>
              18
                <emph.end type="sup"/>
              </s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>And very many vehemently praise the barter system which men used before
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              money was devised, and which even now obtains among certain simple
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              peoples.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>And next they raise a great outcry against other metals, as iron, than
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              </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
        </body>
      </text>
    </archimedes>
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