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Sgt_Colon t1_j1gokol wrote

Reply to comment by Simonbargiora in How did the Romans manage to arm most of their soldiers with swords? by Horror_in_Vacuum

Turns out it was a Greek writing about Elba:

Off the city of Tyrrhenia known as Poplonium there is an island which men call Aethaleia.​ It is about one hundred stades* distant from the coast and received the name it bears from the smoke (aithalos) which lies so thick about it. For the island possesses a great amount of iron-rock, which they quarry in order to melt and cast and thus to secure the iron, and they possess a great abundance of this ore. For those who are engaged in the working of this ore crush the rock and burn the lumps which have thus been broken in certain ingenious furnaces; and in these they smelt the lumps by means of a great fire and form them into pieces of moderate size which are in their appearance like large sponges.

1 stade = 150–210 metres

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