On page 48 of my edition of "Pompeii", Robert Harris writes: An image of his father flashed into his mind. Killed before he was fifty by the lead he had worked with all his life, leaving Attilius, a teenager, as head of the family.
Lead poisoning is often given as a reason, if not the reason, for the fall of the Roman Empire -- it is number 121 on the (alphabetical order) list Irene referred us to earlier.
Encyclopedia Romana has an article on Lead Poisoning and Rome, which comes out against this hypothesis. Ancient/Classical History points to a wide-ranging golden thread from the atrium on lead in Classical times and its effects.
One source of lead was as a by-product of silver mining rather than from mining lead specifically. This map shows the location of silver and lead mines in Britain, including the location of Falco's silver pigs! Unfortunately not all the links on the map work, so you will also have to use the search engine to get further information. The BBC has a story on a Roman lead-smelting site found in Wales.
