ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 1056 Quarrying
At this time, another group of slaves quickly tied up the stones with wheat straw and ropes. This was not only to prevent the stones from being damaged during transportation, but also to prevent the stones from scratching the slaves.

The rope was divided into two groups. After tying the waist of the stone, one end was pulled out by a dozen slaves on the ground, and the other end was held by ten slaves standing on the rock, dragging the stone, and several slaves used The wooden crowbar continued to pry the stone, allowing it to roll over at a relatively steady speed onto a row of logs already placed in front of it.

Finally, the slaves cheered. Their team had completed mining the first stone in a short period of time without any accidents.

This large rectangular stone finally landed smoothly on six or seven logs arranged at intervals. Then several slaves started to tie the stone with ropes again, and then 12 slaves pulled the ropes together, four slaves Continuously place the logs that fall behind in front of the stones.

The huge and heavy stones rolled on the logs, and the ones with less effort were dragged to the stone storage yard on the side of the entrance to the quarry.

The foreman was notified, inspected the stone, confirmed that it was qualified, and recorded it on the wooden board he carried with him.

Maximus' team of slaves cheered again, arousing the envy of other teams, because they had completed mining the first stone in a relatively short period of time without any accidents. It was very possible that Today, you will overcomplete the task and get a reward.

Maximus remained calm, and while he arranged for the remaining slaves who hadn't worked hard before to start hammering wooden wedges into the second rock that had already been grooved, he urged the returning slaves to hurry up and recover their strength.

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The stone piled at the entrance to the mine is roughly shaped here before being sent away.

It is not the slaves of the kingdom who shape the stone here, but the private slaves of Arista Glass. They all have considerable experience in handling stone materials. The accumulation comes.

After all, selling stone is different from selling other metal ores. Few mine owners sell newly mined stones directly to buyers. Instead, they have to provide relatively shaped stones according to the requirements of buyers. For example, the person responsible for rebuilding Hardy at this time The craftsmen of the Sri Lankan Temple sent an assistant to the stone mine. He arrived here after early morning as usual, and based on the construction progress of the temple, he asked the stone mine to provide what styles of stone to the temple today. Stone?How many quantities are required for each style? …

There are mainly three types of shaped stones needed to build the temple: one is the square stone, which will become the stone bricks for building the temple; the other is the round stone, which will become the support for the temple. There are also thinner stone slabs, which are used to lay the floor of the temple.

Hundreds of slave craftsmen here hold iron pliers, iron chisels, iron drills, metal wire and other tools to carefully shape the quarried stones. Not only do they wear linen clothes, but they also wear masks. And turbans, this is because they use metal tools to chisel stones, and stone chips fly, which can easily cause injuries. This is a kind of protection for slaves.The kingdom slaves who mine stone are basically naked except for the scarves that protect their lower bodies. Because they basically do not use metal tools, they have no worries in this regard, and they are not burdened by clothes, making it easier to move and use force. They do not need to worry. The main danger is sudden falling rocks.

Among the several styles of shaping stone, it seems that cutting the stone into slabs is the most difficult. Because marble is different from limestone, its texture is relatively hard. It seems difficult for the tools of this era to do this.

But the Greeks, who have been immersed in marble for hundreds of years, have long developed a good way to deal with it. That is to first draw cutting lines on the stone, and then use tools to carve out a shallow groove along the cutting lines. , fill it with dry sea sand and press it with wire.The slave craftsmen pulled both ends of the metal wire and pulled the wire back and forth along the groove. The metal wire squeezed the sand downwards, and the sand was the actual material used to cut the stone. It wore the stone through constant friction. quality.As the grooves become deeper, more sand is added until the stones are eventually broken apart into slabs.

The final shaped square and round stones will be slightly larger than the stones for the final temple construction, and the slave craftsmen specially left protrusions around the stones as handles during processing to facilitate the transportation of the temple craftsmen.

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The finished stone will be transported away immediately, and the kingdom's slaves will take over again.

Nearly 20 slaves laboriously carried the stones onto the raft, with round logs placed under the raft.Some slaves used ropes to pull the raft, while the remaining slaves continued to place round logs in front. As before, the stones were slowly pulled and moved toward the exit of the mine.

The exit is next to the entrance. The road is paved with large stones, solid and flat, and forms a platform more than two meters high at the end of the road. A four-wheeled vehicle is parked in front of the platform. It is just flush with the platform, so that thick and heavy stones can be pushed onto the car with less effort.

This four-wheeled vehicle is very solidly built. Its wheels are made of several complete circular pieces of wood spliced ​​together. They are extremely tall and thick.

There is also a special carpenter stationed at the exit, because when the stone is just transported to the car, it is most susceptible to damage, and he can repair it nearby.

The wooden carts are pulled by four bulls. Although they move slowly, they are reliable and can carry about 4 tons of weight at a time, which is about 10-2 stones.

Usually, they usually transport the stones to a simple dock next to the Koseni River, and use cargo ships to transport the stones to the place designated by the buyer, which is relatively labor-saving and safe.

However, to provide stones for the main temple of Hades, the Thurii City Hall refused to allow Aristagoras to use the pier in the inner city to transport stones, because in this way, the stone would have to be transported across half of the city from the pier to the temple. In the inner city, this will not only damage the delicate roads in the inner city, affect traffic, and interfere with the rest of the people in the inner city (more than half of the people in the inner city are dignitaries), but most importantly, it is unsafe (because there will be many strange slaves entering and leaving the city). city ​​hinterland).And if you go by land, the main temple of Hades is not far from the west gate of the inner city, which is easy to manage and control.

But for Aristagras, this will undoubtedly be a big headache, because the land route from the mine to the main temple of Hades is about 10 miles. With such a long distance, accidents are prone to occur during transportation, and the wheels If the stone is damaged or the stone falls, it will undoubtedly consume more manpower and material resources to move it away. What's worse is that passers-by are injured, so the compensation will not be a small number. This is Aris After losing a lot of money, Tagras decided to improve transportation problems and pinned his hopes on what scholars call railroad tracks.

The entire quarry is filled with the sounds of work from morning to night: the orders of the foremen, the trumpets of the slaves, the shouts of the driver driving the bullock cart, and the creaking of wood under the weight of the stone. , and the screams of the slaves due to various accidents... one after another, lasting for a long time.

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In the evening, the slaves of the kingdom dragged their tired bodies back to the slave camp. Although they only worked for more than an hour, the mining of stones in the dim environment caused one slave to fail to avoid the falling debris from above. Stone, was hit on the head and lost his life.

Of course, except for the slaves in the same team who were sad and uneasy about this, other slaves seemed indifferent, and some even knew nothing about it.In the huge quarry, thousands of slaves have been working in it during this period. Some people are always injured or even dead. They have already felt numb. What they long for most at this moment is to have a hearty dinner and then sleep well. Last sleep.

Of course, their wishes were fulfilled. The dinner was even more sumptuous than the breakfast. The slaves had enough to eat and drink, and all of them had bloated stomachs. They walked slowly back to their dormitories, and after a simple wash, they lay down on the bed. , fell asleep soundly.

At this moment, the door of a dormitory was pushed open, and someone stood in front of the door and shouted: "Is Fabius Rabiot Gaius there?"

Someone was woken up suddenly and cursed angrily: "Damn it, who is it?!"

The person standing at the door responded coldly: "Patrol!"

The room suddenly became quiet. After a moment, Gaius reminded him softly: "You seem to have called the wrong name. It should be Gaius Fabius Rabiot."

"Are you sure you want to call me that?" The soldier at the door said in a stern voice.

Gaius didn't dare answer.

Last year, at the suggestion of King Davos, the Senate passed the "Surname Law of the Kingdom of Dionia", which stipulates: Whether a citizen of Dionia or a free citizen who wants to join Dionia, he must There is a first name and a surname to facilitate the registration and search of information by the Household Registration Department, and the surname must be first and the given name last. Anyone who does not comply will be punished, and in serious cases, they may even be deprived of their citizenship.

From the perspective of ordinary people in Dionia, it has been almost 20 years since King Davos gave his children his own name, which was gradually followed by his ministers and people. Most citizens already have names. And the surname comes first and the given name comes last. The promulgation of this law only officially turned this custom into a legal provision.

(End of this chapter)