Under the Romans mining activity grew strongly, first of all as far as rich gold ore bodies of lead and silver are concerned. Ever since 269 BC the Roman Republic had employed silver as a monetary unit, whereas lead was used in most various fields of civil life, from crockery to water pipes. Sardinia ranked the third region, among all Roman dominions, after Spain and Brittany, in the amount of worked metals. The mining production during the whole period of Roman rule was assessed at about six hundred thousand tons of lead and one thousand tons of silver. The mining industry of the Romans was not limited to the basin of the Iglesiente, in fact they knew and definitely exploited rich silver ore bodies of Sarrabus, the importance of which the geographer Solinus was referring to when he wrote: "India ebore, argento Sardinia, Attica melle" ("India is famous for ivory, Sardinia for silver and Attica for honey").