ECONOMICS (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Being so valuable, soldiers in the Roman army were sometimes paid with salt instead of money. Their monthly allowance was called “salarium” ("sal” being the Latin word for salt). This Latin root can be recognized in the French word “salaire”-and it eventually made it into the English language as the word “salary."

Detailed explanation-2: -Writing in the mid second century BCE, Polybius (1) estimated soldiers’ pay being around two obols (2) a day which during the year would equate to 120 denarii and for a cavalryman’s pay at 180 denarii. Obviously, the value of the money and its purchasing power was dependent of the economic circumstances of the time.

Detailed explanation-3: -Polybius, writing in the mid-100s BCE, quotes a foot-soldier’s pay as ‘two obols’ per day, that is to say, one third of a denarius (Polybius 6.39. 12). In other words, a Roman pound of salt (ca. 330 grams) cost one twentieth of a foot-soldier’s daily wages.

Detailed explanation-4: -The most widely quoted wages are a denarius a day for a common soldier and 2 denarii per day for a praetorian. Those wages were increased over time by some emperors, including Septimius Severus and Caracalla.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Romans mined salt from deposits in the ground, then dissolved it in water, making a brine solution that would be boiled in large uncovered pans over fire.