How can the Romans be accused of not being interested in iron when iron was
produced in large quantities all over the empire? In Britain alone there was
considerable exploitation in the Weald and the Forest of Dean, as well as many
other areas. And in Noricum (southern Austria), for example, production was
enormous. All mineral rights were vested in the state, but the widespread
availability of iron meant that control over production of iron did not need
to be as tight as it was over rarer metals, such as copper, lead, silver and
gold. Different arrangements for the exploitation of the metal were exercised
throughout the empire according, I suspect, to provincial circumstances and
requirements. There were at least two different methods of organising
production in the Weald, which appear to have operated concurrently.
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