Spain was rich in precious metals; gold, silver, iron, were there the object of industrial activity.[268] At Osca (_Huesca_), they worked mines of silver; at Sisapo (_Almaden_), silver and mercury.[269] At Cotinæ, copper was found along with gold. Among the Oretani, at Castulo (_Cazlona_, on the Guadalimar), the silver mines, in the time of Polybius, gave employment to 40,000 persons, and produced daily 25,000 drachmas.[270] In thirty-two years, the Roman generals carried home from the peninsula considerable sums.[271] The abundance of metals in Spain explains how so great a number of vessels of gold and silver was found among many of the chiefs or petty kings of the Iberian nations. Polybius compares one of them, for his luxury, with the king of the fabulous Phæaces.[272]
To the north, and in the centre of the peninsula, agriculture and the breeding of cattle were the principal sources of wealth. It was there that were made the says (vests of flannel or goats’ hair), which were exported in great numbers to Italy.[273] In the Tarraconese, the cultivation of flax was very productive; the inhabitants had been the first to weave those fine cloths called _carbasa_, which were objects greatly prized as far as Greece.[274] Leather, honey, and salt were brought by cargoes to the principal ports along the coast; at Emporiæ (_Ampurias_), a settlement of the Phocæans in Catalonia; at Saguntum,[275] founded by Greeks from the island of Zacynthus; at Tarraco (_Tarragona_), one of the most ancient of the Phœnician settlements in Spain; and at Malaca (_Malaga_), whence were exported all sorts of salt fish.[276] Lusitania, neglected by the Phœnician or Carthaginian ships, was less favoured. Yet we see, by the passage of Polybius[277] which enumerates the mercantile exports of this province with their prices, that its agricultural products were very abundant.[278]
The prosperity of Spain appears also from the vast amount of its population. According to some authors, Tiberius Gracchus took from the Celtiberians three hundred _oppida_. In Turdetania (_part of Andalusia_), according to Strabo, there were counted no less than two hundred towns.[279] Appian, the historian of the Spanish wars, points out the multitude of petty tribes which the Romans had to reduce,[280] and during the campaign of Cn. Scipio, more than a hundred and twenty submitted.[281]