Following the conquest of Hispania, the Roman Empire initiates the largest open-pit gold mine of antiquity at Las Médulas. Roman engineers utilize a destructive mining technique called 'ruina montium' (wrecking of mountains), which involves undermining cliffs with vast quantities of water diverted through extensive aqueducts to cause entire hillsides to collapse. This radical hydraulic mining yields massive amounts of gold, reinforcing the monetary stability of the Flavian and Antonine dynasties. The landscape is permanently scarred, leaving behind dramatic red clay pinnacles and vast tailing fields that remain visible for millennia.

The environmental devastation and engineering marvel of Las Médulas deeply affect Roman writers who witness the material excess of the empire. Pliny the Elder describes the 'ruina montium' process with a mix of awe and horror in his Naturalis Historia, comparing the human hubris of moving mountains to the acts of the Titans. This industrial disruption of nature fuels the pastoral elegies and satirical poetry of Martial and Juvenal, who contrast the pristine, idealized Golden Age of myth with the brutal, gold-obsessed Iron Age of contemporary Rome.