Corpus Fontium Historiae Fodinarum: Difference between revisions
→Suetonius
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===Suetonius===
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|'''<small>Name-reference</small>'''
|<small>Suetonius Gaius (Caligula) 27</small>
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|'''<small>Modern reference</small>'''
|<small>Graves 1989: 167</small>
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|'''<small>Location of the mine</small>'''
|<small>–</small>
|}
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'''Description-Interpretation:''' Emperor Caligula was so cruel that he would ‘brand many men of decent families and send them down the mines, or put them on the roads or throw them to the wild beasts.’
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'''Comments:''' These types of comments and descriptions are the only sources of proof that not all miners (''fossor'') worked in the mines on a voluntary basis. ''In situ'' proof of their presence is often hard to find as their accommodations would have been hastily constructed, if they were given any at all. If they were housed elsewhere it would still be impossible to see the difference between the accommodation used by forced and free labour, as when the mine was abandoned the inhabitants took everything perishable with them and poorly built remains would have been destroyed. ''Simitthus'' (modern Chemtou, Tunesia) in Africa ''proconsularis'' is the only quarry settlement where remains of a ‘work’ camp have been identified. A stone building at the heart of this camp was identified as a penitentiary centre, an ''ergastulum''. Coinage and pottery provide a construction date of c. AD 170, but it is thought to have been abandoned at the beginning of the third century AD. The building was preserved as it was re-used later as a ‘fabric’.
===Arrian===
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