The assertion that the English word ‘salary’ comes from the ancient roman custom of paying their soldiers in salt is quite common. (Supposedly occurs in Mark Kurlansky’s book Salt, and elsewhere.)
It looks like it all comes from Pliny the Elder, who makes some remarks in his Historia Naturalis, about the soldiers of the Republic. However, he wrote long after the fact, and as it said here
While most dictionaries seem to believe that the English word ‘salary’ seems to trace its roots to this belief, what I question is whether this belief is justified.
I have read somewhere (but I can’t find it now) that the Roman soldiers called their meagre pay ‘salarium’, because it was barely enough to buy salt. A bit like I might complain of the ‘peanuts’ I get from my employer - without actually being paid with nuts.
Some sources even claim that it was the custom of the Roman empire to pay soldiers in salt, but I believe that ever since Augustus they received a ‘proper’ salary in coin (although provisions for food and clothing was already withdrawn.) It could of course refer to the crumbling empire later on, but that would not explain why Pliny mentions it. And I would also believe that salt production would have decreased as fewer new salterns were dug to fight the rising sea-level of the Mediterranean.
To recap the questions:
Are there any reasons to believe that Roman (imperial or republic) soldiers were ever paid in salt, apart from Pliny?
I’ve heard reference to this on TV recently. Here in the UK we have a saying “He’s worth his salt.” meaning that an employee is a hard-worker. On the programme I was watching is was explained that this saying came from when people were paid in salt.
The Urban Legends website is dubious but inconclusive; a posting there says that soldiers may have been paid in salt occasionally but offers no evidence of more regular habits. It actually quotes the OED on “salary” as “money allowed to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt”, which is slightly different from getting paid in salt, but the UL page views the two as close enough.
I’ve also heard the spurious claim that the word soldier comes from Latin “sal dare”, to give salt. (PDF cite I can’t load properly, ick.) (Most reputable sources suggest it derives from Latin “solidus”, meaning coin or money.)
I’ve also come across the claims that only a part of the salary was paid in salt (see here), and that it was only the soldiers who guarded the saltworks (an important role bearing in mind the price of salt) who were paid in salt (The Story of Salt), which is more plausible still.
So is one of these versions the truth and the rest mistakes, or is there some serious confusion involved here?
Personally, I think that if you look at the way language evolved, you don’t need a very close association between salt and wages to have salary derived from salt: look at the English phrase “pin money”, meaning a small allowance for personal spending often given to a housewife. I doubt much pin money was ever spent on pins (even taking rolling pins and clothespins into account). The phrase “beer tokens” for money may be more accurate in terms of usage, but nobody would spend all their wages on beer, would they?
I’ve read several times over the years, most recently in the Colleen Mccullough books, that Roman soldiers were given a periodic “expense payment” to buy the basic needs of maintaining their kit and cooking needs. Cloth, leather, boot nails, olive oil, salt, etc. On occasion, if the commander was short on cash, the payment might have been an allowance of the materials themselves.
It is extremely unlikely that any soldier was ever actually “paid” in salt as salt is quite cheap and easy to make almost anywhere in the Roman world: go to any any beach on the Mediterranean and dig a pit in the sand, fill it with water, let the sun evaporate the water.
It is my understanding that the monthly salt (and other goods) allowance came to be an ironic reference to what the each soldier had coming from his commander and the state, rather like the phrase “buying the farm” came to mean dying in the line of duty rather than surviving and being given a free farm at retirement.
“Worth his salt” thus came to mean worth all that was paid to him in cash and allowances.
No good cites at the moment but maybe I’ll find some.