Roman mining and farming

Mining is the extraction of valuable materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Metals and metal working had been known to the people of modern Italy since the Bronze Age. By 53 BC, Rome had expanded to control an immense expanse of the Mediterranean. This included Italy and its islands, Spain, Macedonia, Africa, Asia Minor, Syria and Greece. Central Italy itself was not rich in metal ores, leading to necessary trade networks in order to meet the demand for metal. Early Italians had some access to metals in the northern regions of the peninsula in Tuscany and Cisalpine Gaul, as well as the islands Elba and Sardinia. Many of the first metal artifacts that archaeologists have identified have been tools or weapons, as well as objects used as ornaments such as jewelry. These early metal objects were made of the softer metals, copper, gold, and lead. Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) was possibly the Roman province richest in mineral ore, containing deposits of gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury). From its acquisition after the Second Punic War to the Fall of Rome, Iberia continued to produce a significant number of Roman metals. When the cost of producing slaves became too high to justify slave laborers for the many mines throughout the empire around the second century, a system of indentured servitude was introduced for convicts. In 369 AD, a law was reinstated due to the closure of many deep mines; the emperor Hadrian had previously given the control of mines to private employers.