the
exact number requisite every farmer would consider a dead loss. (5) But
in silver mining (operations) the universal complaint is the want of
hands. Indeed there is no analogy between this and other industries.
With an increase in the number of bronze-workers articles of bronze may
become so cheap that the bronze-worker has to retire from the field. And
so again with ironfounders. Or again, in a plethoric condition of the
corn and wine market these fruits of the soil will be so depreciated in
value that the particular husbandries cease to be remunerative, and many
a farmer will give up his tillage of the soil and betake himself to the
business of a merchant, or of a shopkeeper, to banking or money-lending.
But the converse is the case in the working of silver; there the larger
the quantity of ore discovered and the greater the amount of silver
extracted, the greater the number of persons ready to engage in the
operation. One more illustration: take the case of movable property. No
one when he has got sufficient furniture for his house dreams of making
further purchases on this head, but of silver no one ever yet possessed
so much that he was forced to cry "enough." On the contrary, if ever
anybody does become possessed of an immoderate amount he finds as much
pleasure in digging a hole in the ground and hoarding it as in the
actual employment of it. And from a wider point of view: when a state is
prosperous there is nothing which people so much desire as silver.
The men want money to expend on beautiful armour and fine horses, and
houses, and sumptuous paraphernalia (6) of all sorts. The women betake
themselves to expensive apparel and ornaments of gold. Or when states
are sick, (7) either through barrenness of corn and other fruits, or
through war, the demand for current coin is even more imperative (whilst
the ground lies unproductive), to pay for necessaries or military aid.

(1) Or, "on a sound basis."

(2) "Exploited."

(3) Or, "at the date when the maximum of hands was employed."

(4) Reading {epikataskeuazumenois}, or, if {episkeuazomenoi}, transl.
"at the rehabilitation of old works."

(5) Cf. "Oecon." xvii. 12.

(6) "The thousand and one embellishments of civil life."

(7) "When a state is struck down with barrenness," etc. See "Mem." II.
vii.

And if it be asserted that gold is after all just as useful as silver,
without gainsaying the proposition I may note this fact (8) about gold,