Talk:Salary

	; Archives (Index) ;
	2012; 2021;
	This page is archived by ClueBot III.

Business B‑class Mid‑importance

	Business portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Business, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of business articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BusinessWikipedia:WikiProject BusinessTemplate:WikiProject BusinessWikiProject Business articles
B	This article has been given a rating which conflicts with the project-independent quality rating in the banner shell. Please resolve this conflict if possible.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Finance & Investment Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Finance & Investment, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to Finance and Investment on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Finance & InvestmentWikipedia:WikiProject Finance & InvestmentTemplate:WikiProject Finance & InvestmentFinance & Investment articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Roman Salarium

Our discussion on salarium clearly says that Roman soldiers were not paid in salt -- a common error -- and that a salarium was probably not even a "salt allowance". This is based on Gainsford's blog "Salt and salary: were Roman soldiers paid in salt?", which is very convincing and well-argued, with references to primary sources. And besides his very good blog series, Gainsford also publishes in traditional journals.[1] But for such strong claim, in the face of overwhelming amounts of misinformation even in reputable sources, it would be good to have additional sources. Any ideas where to find them? --Macrakis (talk) 16:35, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I originally added the blog entry as source, for the reasons that you stated and agree that it's provenance means that it is not totally satisfactory. The best additional source that I have found is the following brief note in John L. Myres "Ancient Groceries" Greece & Rome Vol. 22, No. 64 (1953), pp. 1-10 at p. 5: "Salt came easily from the ubiquitous sea, under so strong a sun, and was traded, like fish, far inland, till it met the rock-salt, mined in Salzkammergut since very early times... the earliest and typical 'allowance for expenses' was the salarium 'salt money', like the customary charge for 'condiments' in the battel-bills of Oxford colleges" Furius (talk) 17:03, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I read Gainsford correctly, there isn't even evidence for the 'salt money' theory. Myres' paper is a lecture for the general public (written in 1910!) and the statement has no source, ancient or modern. If it was a line item in a soldier's pay, I'd think it would show up in some ancient account-book.

To be clear, I find Gainsford's article convincing, but it would be nice if it were corroborated by additional, stronger sources, or even reviews of Gainsford's article in good journals. --Macrakis (talk) 20:37, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Myres' article is a modified version of the lecture, published in Greece & Rome, which is one of the higher prestige journals in the field of ancient history. It remains common in the field to cite articles from the first half of the 20th century. Myres is not saying that salarium was money for salt, he's saying, like Gainsford, that the term literally means "salt-money" but was a general "allowance for expenses" of all sorts. There will not be reviews of Gainsford's post in journals. I didn't realise that you wanted a source for the existence of the salarium in ancient times. There are plenty of sources ancient and modern for the salarium as a line item and discuss how much it was - e.g. Daniel Peretz "The Roman Interpreter and His Diplomatic and Military Roles" Historia 2006, Bd. 55, H. 4 (2006), pp. 451-470 at 453, but such documents don't explain what the salarium is (in the same way that modern receipts record how much VAT was paid but don't say what VAT is)... There's also this [2] Furius (talk) 22:15, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]