From the Tauriscan Gold Mine to the Goldenhorn and the Unusual Alpine Animal

Three themes are analysed in the article, which are related under certain aspects to each other. These are the discovery of a rich gold deposit in the land of the Taurisci, mentioned by the Greek historian, Polybius, and the geographer and historian, Strabo; the folk-tale of the Goldenhorn/Zlatorog, in which the search for gold and treasure is reflected; and the third, the peculiar Alpine animal mentioned by the same Greek writers. It could be interpreted as a mythic animal, although in view of the accurate description, the animal was probably an elk.

of a much earlier date, the Taurisci were in general openly hostile to the Roman state.5 G. Alföldy, who rejected any connection between the gold mine affair and Tuditanus' expedition, located the gold mine in the Norican kingdom. 6First of all, the location of the mine must once more be briefly examined.
Polybius located the gold mine in the country of the Taurisci, not far from Aquileia.The expression κατ' 'ΑκυληEαν is not particularly precise and may have served only as a point of orientation for the readers of Polybius' History, meaning no more and no less than "in the sphere of influence" of Aquileia, or "in the broad hinterland" of the city.Aquileia was the northeasternmost colony in Cisalpine Gaul around the middle of the 2nd century B.C., and a point of geographical reference for areas outside the limits of Cisalpina.So the regions determined by the (relative) proximity of Aquileia may have comprised even a distant territory, not just the immediate hinterland of the city.In Polybius' time, there was no toponym east and north of Aquileia that could have served contemporary Greek and Roman readers as a point of geographical orientation.
The next problem posed by Polybius' text are the Norican Taurisci.The location of the Taurisci has until recently been controversial, since according to several scholars (who based their opinion mainly on the linguistic aspect), notably also G. Alföldy,7 they would have been the original inhabitants of the Norican kingdom, getting their name from the Tauern Mts., whereas others, on the basis of ancient sources, have located them south of the Karavanke Kraji, reke, gore in plemena, ki so omenjeni v besedilu.
Alps. 8 This controversy has definitely been solved, despite some different opinions, 9 in favour of the latter thesis.The Taurisci were settled in the regions south of the Alps, occupying most of present-day Slovenia; on the one hand, their presence there is confirmed by the data in classical literature, 10 on the other, by archaeological evidence, reflected in the so-called La T&ne period Mokronog culture. 11The only areas connected with their name in the ancient sources are the Aquileia and Nauportus regions; while the name of Aquileia, as mentioned above, obviously served as a geographical reference, Strabo claimed that Nauportus was a settlement of the Taurisci (VII 5.2 C 314), that is to say that they inhabited the Emona Basin and the broader area surrounding it.Their influence had certainly reached as far to the east as Ocra in the region below Nanos, while towards the west they inhabited the Celeia and Poetovio regions, and extended even further to the northwest (fig.1). 12The Taurisci in the Emona Basin are not related to the Norici in the sources; in league with the Lower Carniolan Celtic tribes, who were later, after the reign of Augustus, known under the name of the Latobici, they possibly resisted the expansionistic tendencies of the Norican kingdom, and certainly those of the Roman state.Regnum Noricum undoubtedly wished to extend its authority as much to the south and southeast as possible, and during certain periods it certainly gained some influence over the Celeia and Poetovio regions -those nearest the kingdom -and those Taurisci would have properly been termed the Norican Taurisci.The Norican conquest of these regions is very well reflected also in coin finds. 13When Pliny the Elder says that those who had once been known as Taurisci, were in his time known as Norici (N.h.III 133: quondam Taurisci appellati, nunc Norici), he obviously referred most of all to Celeia, which was part of the province of Noricum and one of its most important administrative centres, and to the Taurisci, settled in the region of Poetovio.
Where could gold deposits such as that mentioned by Polybius be located?In Slovenia no traces of gold extraction are known to date; the nearest gold mines are situated in the region south of the Hohe Tauern (Visoke Ture) in Austria, the centre of the Norican kingdom.Polybius' gold mine has often been located precisely there. 14Other gold deposits in Noricum (or in the country of the Taurisci?: Tauriscan Noreia is mentioned by Plin., N. h.III 131), 1200 stades (ca.222 km) distant from Aquileia, are mentioned elsewhere in Strabo (V 1.8 C 214).In this passage he described Aquileia as an emporium for the inhabitants of Illyricum, stating that a navigable river connected Aquileia with Noreia, where Cn.Papirius Carbo was defeated by the Cimbri.He further noted that alluvial gold was being won in large quantities in the region of Noreia where also an iron industry was developed.The site of Noreia, too, has not been identified to date. 15Returning to the gold mine mentioned by Polybius, however, and the possibility that it was located in Carinthia, it can hardly be imagined that the core of Regnum Noricum would not have been referred to under the name of the Norici, but under that of the Taurisci who are otherwise never located in the kingdom by the ancient sources.Some Austrian scholars have thus already argued for the location of the Taurisci, and consequently also the mine, in the southeastern Alpine region. 16n terms of Slovenia's geological structure, the Pohorje Mts., Kozjak, and Kobansko region (the broad area of Poetovio), consisting of metamorphic rocks, the oldest ore bearing beds in Slovenia, would have been potentially the most suitable area where gold deposits could have theoretically been expected (fig.1). 17Strabo implied, by adding at the end of Polybius' report that in the country of the Taurisci alluvial gold, too, was being washed out, that the gold mine in question was a primary deposit of gold.Nonetheless, the discovered gold, as described by Polybius, must have been alluvial gold, found in a geological stratum that had once been the river-bed, and where gold could have coagulated in the course of time.Such terraces could lie even several hundred metres above the present riverbed, giving the impression that gold found on them was a primary deposit of gold. 18The only rivers carrying gold in Slovenia are the Drava and Mura (Mur).The Drava and Mura regions were settled by the Taurisci; historically considered, Polybius' mine could well be located in this region.It is situated rather far from Aquileia, but if it is considered that the mine was controlled by the Taurisci from the Nauportus-Emona region or from Celeia, where their important settlements and centres of power were situated, Aquileia as a point of geographical orientation is not too distant.
Gold that was found in the form of rather large grains, as big as beans or lupines, can only be -as already mentioned -alluvial gold.Such a deposit could not have been a primary deposit as understood by Strabo (and probably also by Polybius), so it is vain to look for it in regions nearer Aquileia.From the geological point of view, certain areas, such as the Julian and Kamnik Alps, the Bled and Bohinj regions, can be excluded even as potential areas in which gold could be discovered.Copper has been discovered in the Cerkljansko region in the hinterland of Idrija, and some deposits of lead and zinc (and even copper and mercury) are known in several sections of the Posavje regions, between Polhov Gradec, the Trbovlje region, and Čatež. 19However, no traces of gold have been discovered anywhere in these regions, and no river with its source in Slovenia, carries gold.It appears that gold was found by Italian gold diggers; this information is implied in Polybius' report, since otherwise it is hardly understandable why Italics would be collaborating with the Tauriscan workers at the very beginning of its exploitation; 20 even later the Romans often left mining to local workers. 21t is not entirely clear from Polybius' description how the actual process of winning pure gold should correctly be explained.He speaks of one eighth being lost during the process of smelting, but it is not certain what exactly he understood by "smelting"; possibly the whole metallurgical procedure from the moment of the discovery of the metal. 22Gold is often mixed with silver; it could have been heated with salt, which would bind the silver, leaving the gold in a pure state; or mercury may have been used to produce gold by way of amalgamation; the technique is mentioned by Pliny (N.h.33.99: [omnia ei (sc.argentum vivum) innatant praeter aurum; id unum ad se trahit]).Mercury is currently used for producing pure gold out of alluvial gold mixed with sand, thus also from the Drava River. 23e Goldenhorn-Zlatorog In both the Julian and Kamnik Alps elements of folk tales are preserved containing motifs either of a so-called Goldenhorn-Zlatorog, or chamois goats with golden hoofs, connected with gold or treasure seekers, that may reflect occasional local searching for gold and/or iron and other metals, and various other treasures in these regions. 24The tale of Goldenhorn-Zlatorog is particularly interesting, since it is transmitted in a variant containing several significant details; it is located in the Soča (Italian Isonzo) valley in the hinterland of the northeastern Italian border, and Italian merchants and treasure seekers play a part in it (fig.2).It is known that in the Middle Ages, as well as in modern age, Italian, mainly Venetian, gold-diggers and treasure seekers came to Slovenian and Austrian regions to search for gold and other metals.Their presence is reflected in various Slovenian and German folk tales, and has already been studied from this aspect. 25Mutatis mutandis, it may be claimed that it could in some ways be compared to the presence of the Italics -many of them probably from Aquileia -in the Norican kingdom and the country of the Taurisci.
The Goldenhorn was the leader of a herd of white chamois goats that belonged to the White Ladies, who had made him invulnerable.If he was hurt, a healing Triglav rose grew from the drops of his blood, curing all his wounds.Whoever could sieze his golden horns, would gain access to all the hidden treasures guarded by a multi-headed serpent in Bogatin Mt.An Italian gold-digger once succeeded in taking possession of a scrap of Zlatorog's golden horns that Zlatorog had rubbed off on a rock, and with it he could get the hidden gold, which he exploited for the rest of his life.
The story was first copied by K. Deschmann who published it at the end of the sixties of the last century in German in Laibacher Zeitung. 26He translated it from Slovenian as it had been narrated to him by a local collector of folk tales, who in his turn heard it from shepherds from the Bovec region.Deschmann had apparently already found it shaped in literary form, since in his version, a love story with an unhappy end between the beautiful innkeeper's daughter and the "Hunter from Trenta" has been added to the essential Goldenhorn story as sketched above.In the story as copied by Deschmann, the daughter of the local innkeeper from Koritnica was in love with a young man from Trenta, a blind widow's son, who was the best hunter in the neighbourhood.After a while, the girl yielded to the wealth and good manners of an Italian visitor, a merchant, and despised the poverty of her former lover.He left the inn deeply offended, went with the so-called "Green Hunter", an evil man, to search for the Goldenhorn and the treasures of Bogatin, wounded him, but the Goldenhorn recovered and caused the Hunter from Trenta to fall over a precipice into the Soča River, where he met his death.The White Ladies with white chamois goats left the region for ever, turning the once beautiful green valley to rocks and barren land.Traces of Goldenhorn's horns could still be seen on the ground, with which in rage he destroyed the landscape.
There is no doubt that the story, as presented by Deschmann, is to a large extent a 19th century invention.However, it does not seem likely to assume, as has been done by several modern critics, that Deschmann invented any parts of the story and gave it its literary form.It is much more probable that such was the version he found, and that the literary shaping should rather be ascribed to his informant; nonetheless, the story in Deschmann should thus be regarded a product of late romanticism.It inspired a poem by R. Baumbach, which made it known to a wider audience with whom it found great favour.Baumbach's poem was translated into Slovenian by A. Funtek27 and it soon became one of the most popular folk tales in Slovenia.The Zlatorog story provided the basis for several German, Slovenian, and Italian literary creations, from operas to dramas and poems. 28t is still disputed among scholars how much of the Goldenhorn story may be ascribed directly to the folk tradition, and which components should be considered later additions and embellishments. 29The essential features of the folk tale are nonetheless well discernible.The core of the story is the idea of an animal different from the others in its appearance, like, for example, an albino, or, possibly, a very rare animal which is sacred to a deity or a divine "Lord of the animals".The life of such an animal is sacred, taboo for hunters, and hunting it is strictly prohibited.Immanent in these conceptions, and familiar to predominantly pastoral, hunting, and stock-farming societies, is a kind of protection of nature and wild life which cannot, and should not, be endlessly exploited.It was vitally important for the epichoric population not to compromise the balance in the natural order of the world that surrounded it.Not surprisingly, a "sacred" animal became related to the guarding of certain natural resources, the nature of which was considered especially precarious, such as rare metals.Elements of stories with similar content are known in Indo-European folk tradition in general, 30 and reflect ancient mythic and religious conceptions originating from the distant past; 31 actually several motifs of animals with golden horns, or some other golden parts of their bodies, related or not with treasure, as well as the healing powers of certain herbs, are well known in Greek and Roman classical literature, 32 and it has even been postulated that myths similar to the essential story of the Goldenhorn-Zlatorog may be attributed to the folk tradition of the ancient inhabitants of the Balkans and Thrace. 33he tale of the Goldenhorn-Zlatorog may be Slavic, or Slovenian, 34 but in principle, as postulated by R. Wildhaber, I also see no arguments against the assumption that a folk tale, similar to it may have already originated in prehistory.On the other hand, however, there is also no definite evidence to prove it, so it would be useless to pursue this discussion further.Nonetheless, I would like to add a few remarks in order hypothetically to illustrate and interpret a posssible circulation of such a folk tale in the pre-Roman period.
It may have been preserved in the oral tradition of the Celtic, or even pre-Celtic, population, nourished from time to time by the actual discovery of rare metals or other treasures.Brave men, or desperados and outsiders, had always ventured to penetrate the realm of untouched and inaccessible nature, where life seemed to have been nearer the divine powers, governed and protected by spirits, good and evil, as people in the valleys below the mountains liked to believe.This must have been especially true of mountainous and hilly countries such as Slovenia and Austria, where modern alpinism, in a certain way not unlike the search for treasure, even nowadays demands several victims every year.The discovery of a gold mine, such as that mentioned by Polybius and Strabo, no doubt strengthened belief among the local population in legends and tales of strange mythic animals, protectors -or agents of a divine protector -of nature and its treasures.In view of such an explanation, it may be postulated that folk tales of the Goldenhorn-Zlatorog type could to some extent reflect reality -as folk tales often do 35 -in so far as they could be considered an indication of the occasional successful search for treasure.Supposed treasure in Bogatin Mt. certainly incited whole crowds of gold-seekers, Italian and local, to invest their money in vain digging at various spots on the mountain just below its peak, some of whom were reduced to poverty because of their blind desire to enrich themselves. 36imals mythic or real?Some animals which appear in folk tales are doubtless the fruit of popular imagination and can be relegated to mythical conceptions of primitive religious folk beliefs, such as various dragons, multi-headed or multi-limbed monsters, and, for example, also the unicorn who has certain features in common with the Goldenhorn-Zlatorog. 37 The Goldenhorn-Zlatorog, on the contrary, should be regarded both as a real and as an imaginary animal, since he may have been a white chamois goat with horns appearing golden against a background of the rising or setting sun, or the sun's rays reflected on his horns.Rare animals, too, must have stirred up credulous folk imagination.Chamois goats (Rupicapra rupicapra [Linnaeus, 1758]) may not have been particularly rare animals, since they inhabited both high and low mountains, and also rocky gorges of the lower hilly regions, such as the gorge of the Iška River, the Zagorje region along the Sava River, the valley of the Kolpa, and elsewhere in Slovenia. 38The habitat of his relative, the Alpine ibex (Capra ibex [Linnaeus, 1758]), for example, is much more limited, it is confined to high mountains above the forest line, mainly the Alps, and the ibex must have been a rare animal also in the prehistoric period.It would have been seen only rarely by the inhabitants of the valleys, and even shepherds would not encounter it too often.Its remains are extremely rare among bone finds in excavated prehistoric and Roman settlements, thus for example at Magdalensberg (Slov.Štalenski vrh) in Carinthia, where three individuals have been identified, 39 and at Stična, from where two bone fragments are known. 40S. Bökönyi suggested that the inhabitants of Stična may have occasionally gone on hunting expeditions to the Alps, or, possibly, ibex would have lived in prehistoric times, like chamois goats to the present day, also in the high hills regions. 41It may have been even rarer than it seems, since bone remains ascribed to it could well have belonged in reality to a wild goat, the ancestor of the domestic goat (Capra aegagrus [Erxleben, 1777]), and closely related to the ibex. 42

Unusual Alpine animal
According to F. Lasserre, several scholars have proposed that the strange animal seen in the Alps in Polybius' times, would have been an ibex. 43Lasserre, however, did not cite any works in which this opinion was expressed, but he must have clearly referred to previous editors of Polybius and Strabo (who had preserved Polybius' fragmentary note about this animal), or local histories of the Alps; I have not found any specific study dedicated exclusively to this subject.This fragmentary passage preserved by Strabo, too, originates from Polybius' 34th book, like that about the gold mine, cited above.
"The Alps are inhabited by wild horses and cattle.Polybius also speaks of the existence of an animal of unusual form in these mountains; its outward appearance closely resembles that of a stag, except its neck and coat which look like a boar's.Below the chin it has a hard protuberance about a span long, with hairs growing at the end, as thick as the tail of a colt." That the animal in question cannot be an ibex is quite clear from its description: it resembled a deer and not a goat.Since both deer and goats were very well known in the Mediterranean world, Polybius could hardly have written that the animal in question looked like a deer if it was actually an ibex, resembling a goat.There seems to be only one possible identification of the Alpine animal, mentioned by Polybius.According to his description, it seems most likely to have been an elk (Alces alces [Linnaeus, 1758], fig.3). 44The characteristics given by Polybius would correspond well to this mammal, which no longer inhabits the Alps.Its ramified antlers and overall appearance make it resemble a deer, its hair is bristly, vaguely resembling that of a boar, and it has a hard growth under its chin.Elks were living in the territory of Slovenia and also in the neighbouring Alpine areas as late as Holocene, 45 and may have survived in these regions until the Middle Ages. 46Their natural habitat is a lake landscape, more or less marshy countryside with woods of birches and alders.They were totally unknown in the warm climate of the Mediterranean world and even in the Alpine and subalpine regions, they may have been rare during the late La T&ne and Roman periods, so it is not surprising that the animal seemed peculiar to Polybius.At Magdalensberg (Štalenski vrh) bone remains of only three animals have been identified, 47 V članku obravnavam tri teme, dve iz antične zgodovinsko-geografske literature, to sta odkritje zlata pri Tavriskih in omemba nenavadne alpske živali, ter eno iz slovenskega ljudskega pripovedništva, to je povedka o Zlatorogu.Med seboj sicer niso tesno povezane, pač pa jih je z določenih zornih kotov mogoče obravnavati skupaj.