Chapter 6 Quarrying

At this time, another group of slaves quickly bundled the stones with wheat straw and ropes, not only to prevent the stones from being damaged during the next transportation, but also to prevent the stones from scratching the slaves.

The ropes are divided into two groups. After binding the waist of the stone, one end is pulled out by a dozen slaves on the ground, and the other end is held by ten slaves standing on the rock, dragging the stone, and several slaves use it. The wooden crowbar continued to pry the stone, allowing it to tumble at a relatively steady speed onto the row of logs that had been placed in front of it.

In the end, the slaves cheered, and their team had mined the first stone in a relatively short period of time without any accident.

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

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

The foreman was notified, inspected the stone, confirmed it was acceptable, and recorded it on the board he carried.

The team of slaves where Maximus was in cheered again, arousing the envy of other teams, because they had mined the first stone in a relatively short period of time, and there was no accident. It is very likely that Today, you will over-complete the task again, and you will be rewarded.

Maximus remained calm. While arranging the remaining slaves who had not done much before, to start knocking wooden wedges into the second rock that had been grooved, he urged the returning slaves to seize the time to recover their strength.

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Stones stacked at the entrance of the mine are 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 Aristagoras, all of whom have considerable experience in stone processing, more than 10 years after Aristagrass has been in this business. to accumulate.

After all, selling stone is different from selling other metal ores. Few mine owners directly sell the newly mined stone to buyers, but provide relatively shaped stones according to the buyer's requirements. For example, he is responsible for rebuilding Hadi. The craftsmen of the main temple are stationed as assistants to the quarry. He arrived here after early morning as usual, and according to the construction progress of the temple, he asked the quarry to provide the temple today. Stone? How many quantities are required for each style? ...

There are mainly three kinds of shaped stones needed to build the temple: one is square stones,

It would be the stone bricks on which the temple was built; the round stones would be the pillars that supported the temple; and the thinner slabs, which would be used to lay the temple floor.

Hundreds of slave craftsmen here hold iron pliers, iron chisels, iron drills, wire and other tools to carefully shape the mined stones. They not only wear linen clothes, but also wear masks. And turbans, because they use metal tools to gouge the stone, the stone chips are flying, and it is easy to cause injury, which is a kind of protection for the slaves. And the slaves of the kingdom who mined the stone were basically naked except for the cloth covering their lower body, because they basically didn't use metal tools, so they didn't have to worry about this, and they didn't have the burden of clothes. It was more convenient to move and use force. They needed to worry about it. The main danger is the sudden fall of rocks.

Of these styles of shaping stone, it seems that cutting the stone into a slab is the most difficult, because marble, unlike limestone, has a harder texture, which seems difficult to do with the tools of this era.

But the Greeks, who have been immersed in marble for hundreds of years, have long researched a good way to deal with it, that is, first draw a cutting line on the stone, and then use a tool to chisel a shallow groove along the cutting line. , fill it with dry sea sand, and press on the wire. Slave craftsmen tug on both ends of the wire, pulling the wire back and forth along the grooves, and the wire squeezes the sand down, and the sand is what actually cuts the stone, and wears the stone through constant friction. quality. As the grooves get deeper, more sand needs to be added at this point, until eventually the blocks are broken apart and turned into slabs.

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

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The finished stone is transported away immediately, which again has to be taken over by the kingdom slaves.

Nearly 20 slaves laboriously lift stones onto rafts, which are cushioned with round logs. Some of the slaves used ropes to pull the raft, while the rest kept placing round logs in front of them. As before, the stones were slowly pulled and moved to the exit of the mine.

The exit is on the side of the entrance, the road is paved with large stones, firm and level, and at the end of the road a platform more than two meters high is formed. It is just flush with the platform, so that heavy and heavy stones can be pushed to the cart with less effort.

This four-wheeled vehicle is very strong, and its wheels are made of several complete round pieces of wood spliced ​​together, which are extremely tall and thick.

There is also a special carpenter stationed at the exit, because when the stone has just been delivered to the car, it is most likely to be damaged, and he can repair it nearby.

The wooden wheelbarrow is pulled by 4 bulls. Although they move slowly, they are reliable. They can carry a weight of about 10 tons each time, which is about 2-3 stones.

Usually, they usually transport the stones to the simple wharf beside the Kosenyi River, and use the cargo ships to transport the stones to the place designated by the buyer, which is relatively labor-saving and safe.

But to provide the stone to the main temple of Hades, the city hall of Turii refused Aristagoras to use the inner city's pier to deliver the stone, because in this way, the stone would need to traverse more than half of the way from the pier to the temple. In the inner city, this will not only damage the delicate roads of the inner city, affect the 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), the most important thing 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 Aristagrass, this will undoubtedly be a big headache, because the land route from the mine to the main temple of Hades is about 10 miles, such a long distance, it is easy to have accidents during transportation, wheels If it is damaged or the stone falls, it will undoubtedly cost more manpower and material resources to move it away, and what is even worse is to injure passers-by, then the compensation will not be a small amount, this is Aris After losing a lot of money, Taglass decided to improve transportation, pinning his hopes on what scholars call the rails.

The whole quarry was filled with the sounds of work from morning to night: the orders of the foremen, the horns of the slaves, the shouts of the coachman driving the bullock cart, the crunch of the wood under the weight of the stone. , and the screams of the slaves due to various accidents... One after another, it lasted for a long time.

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In the evening, the slaves of the kingdom dragged their tired bodies and returned to the slave camp. Although they only worked for more than an hour, the digging of stones in the dim environment caused a slave to fail to escape the falling debris. Stone, was hit in the head and lost his life.

Of course, except for the slaves in the same team who felt sad and uneasy about it, 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 of time. Some people are always injured or even die. They have already felt numb. At this moment, what they most desire is to eat a hearty dinner and then sleep soundly. Last sleep.

Of course, their wishes were fulfilled, and the dinner was even richer than the breakfast. The slaves were full and shy, and walked slowly back to their dormitory. After a simple wash, they lay 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 loudly, "Is Fibius Rabiot Gaius here?"

Someone was suddenly awakened and scolded angrily: "Damn, who is it?!"

The person standing at the door replied coldly, "Patrol!"

The room was suddenly quiet, and after a while, Gaius reminded softly, "You seem to have called the wrong name, it should be Gaius Fibius Rabiot."

"Are you sure you want to call that!" The soldier at the door said sternly.

Gaius did not dare to answer.

Last year, at the suggestion of King Davos, the Senate passed the "Dionian Kingdom Surname Act", which stipulated that both citizens of Dionia and freedmen who want to join Dionia must There is a name and a surname to facilitate the registration and search of its information by the household registration department, and the surname must be in the first and last name. Those who do not comply will be punished, and even deprived of their citizenship in serious cases.

From the point of view of ordinary Dionysian people, it has been almost 20 years since King Davos used his own name as a surname for his children and was gradually imitated by his ministers and the public. Most of the citizens already have names. And the surname is in the front and the first name is in the back. The promulgation of this decree is just to formally turn this habit into a legal clause.

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