that, with a sudden influx of this metal, it is the gold itself which
is depreciated whilst causing at the same time a rise in the value of
silver.

(8) Lit. "I know, however."

The above facts are, I think, conclusive. They encourage us not only to
introduce as much human labour as possible into the mines, but to extend
the scale of operations within, by increase of plant, etc., in full
assurance that there is no danger either of the ore itself being
exhausted or of silver becoming depreciated. And in advancing these
views I am merely following a precedent set me by the state herself. So
it seems to me, since the state permits any foreigner who desires it to
undertake mining operations on a footing of equality (9) with her own
citizens.

(9) Or, "at an equal rent with that which she imposes on her own
citizens." See Boeckh, "P. E. A." IV. x. (p. 540, Eng. tr.)

But, to make my meaning clearer on the question of maintenance, I will
at this point explain in detail how the silver mines may be furnished
and extended so as to render them much more useful to the state. Only I
would premise that I claim no sort of admiration for anything which I am
about to say, as though I had hit upon some recondite discovery. Since
half of what I have to say is at the present moment still patent to the
eyes of all of us, and as to what belongs to past history, if we are to
believe the testimony of our fathers, (10) things were then much of a
piece with what is going on now. No, what is really marvellous is that
the state, with the fact of so many private persons growing wealthy
at her expense, and under her very eyes, should have failed to imitate
them. It is an old story, trite enough to those of us who have cared to
attend to it, how once on a time Nicias, the son of Niceratus, owned
a thousand men in the silver mines, (11) whom he let out to Sosias, a
Thracian, on the following terms. Sosias was to pay him a net obol a
day, without charge or deduction, for every slave of the thousand,
and be (12) responsible for keeping up the number perpetually at that
figure. So again Hipponicus (13) had six hundred slaves let out on
the same principle, which brought him in a net mina (14) a day without
charge or deduction. Then there was Philemonides, with three hundred,
bringing him in half a mina, and others, I make no doubt there were,
making profits in proportion to their respective resources and capital.
(15) But there is no need to