Expert: Irulan Serena - 1/1/2006

Question
It's a well-known "fact" that Roman soldiers were paid in salt.  Is this really true?  Everyone knows there were Roman coins around.  If they were actually paid in salt, how much would they get and what would they do with it?

Answer
Hello Robin Lee,

Yes, Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt. It is said to be from this that we get the word soldier - 'sal dare', meaning to give salt. From the same source we get the word salary,  which in turn is derived from the Latin word, 'salarium'. The salt amount would depend on rank, and what they did with it was to preserve their food, mealts in partiuclar.


The power to control a population's salt supply was power over life and death due to the preservative qualities of salt. To sit above or below the salt identified precedence in the seating arrangements at a feast, according to one's rank. Not to be worth one's salt was a great insult. The Bible compliments some men as being 'the salt of the earth'.

Salt monopoly whether once controlled by benevolent democratic regimes, autocratic fascist regimes or even socialist regimes was the scourge - the triumph - and finally the corroding corruption of all these regimes.

One of the few substances known to the ancients that could preserve foodstuffs and dead bodies was salt.  

The Roman rite of contarreatio (patrician marriage) had the bride and groom share a cake of flour and salt, which stood for flesh and blood respectively, and magically transformed them – like those who in older times shared real flesh and blood – into blood kin, unable to harm one another.


Regards,

Irulan