In Tactitus’s telling, the legionaries were “worn out” by the arduous, dirty, and dangerous task of mining, “of digging out water-courses and constructing underground workings which would have been difficult enough in the open,” let alone in the stifling darkness, broken only feebly by the glow of oil lamps. To voice their displeasure, the legionaries wrote a letter to the emperor, asking him to recognize the efforts of their unpopular commander, Curtius Rufus, with triumphal honors. Such an acknowledgment, they hoped, would permit Rufus to drop the largely fruitless effort. Eventually the search for silver was abandoned, and the army’s encampment destroyed.