In another passage, speaking of the town of Noreia in Noricum, he says “this district possesses productive gold-washings and iron-works44.”
Moving on again westwards, we easily find strong evidence of active gold-mining in the Alpine regions. All the granite strata on the southern side of the High Alps from the Simplon to Mont Blanc are auriferous. Not only have extensive mining operations been carried on at different points down almost to the present day, but the mines were beyond all doubt vigorously worked, not merely in Roman but in pre-Roman days. In the district of La Besse, at the foot of Mont Grand on the right bank of the Cervo between Biella and Ivrea, are still to be seen very extensive traces of gold washings and gold diggings45. These are no other than the once famous mines of Victumulae alluded to by Strabo when, in speaking of this region, he says that “there is not now as much attention bestowed on the mines as there used to be, because the mines in the country of the transalpine Kelts and in Spain are more profitable, but formerly they were well worked, since at Vercelli there was a gold-digging. Vercelli is a village near Ictumulae which is itself a village, and both of them are in the vicinity of Placentia46.” So important were these mines that Pliny47 says there existed a Censorian law relating to them, by which it was provided that the capitalists who farmed the mines were not to employ more than 5000 workmen.