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The roman soldiers did not actually get paid in salt, or if they did, it was more like a ration, not their actual pay. People say this all the time, and its pa
by hobs 8y ago
The roman soldiers did not actually get paid in salt, or if they did, it was more like a ration, not their actual pay.
People say this all the time, and its patently wrong - salt was not a rare resource in italy, the sea is everywhere.
- ljcn 8y agoI agree it would be surprising if they were paid in salt, but the OED says Latin salārium, originally money allowed to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt, hence, their pay
- kaycebasques 8y ago> salt was not a rare resource in italy, the sea is everywhere If I recall correctly, the book from the article mentions that the sea is an inefficient way to gather salt. The salinity is just much lower than what you can find in underground brine springs. It also goes into how Italian city-states went to war over control of saltworks, and how it hugely increased the wealth of whoever controlled it. So although it may not have been rare, I don't think it's accurate to paint it as an abundant resource, either. Interesting about the misinformation around the etymology of "salary." Thanks for pointing out. Found an article [1] that goes into more depth about how there's no evidence for the explanation. [1]: http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.ht...
- hobs 8y agoI should have remembered the bit about the saltworks though, good point.
- Retric 8y agoIt takes a lot of effort to turn sea water into salt. You get 4.5 ounces of salt from a gallon of water and it takes a fairly long time or a lot of fuel for 1 gallon of water to evaporate.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoWhich is why the best regions for making sea salt are areas where the sea water is naturally concentrated due to geography that traps it and lets the sun do a lot of the work.