The use and value of salt

[Epictetus]

Supposedly, in early Rome salt was rare and valuable. Even Pliny thought that the word for ‘salary’ came from the word for ‘salt’ because soldiers had once been paid in it. But as time went on, did salt become more common and lose its value? Galen mentions peasants using it:

But I myself, when travelling as a young man into the countryside some distance from Pergamum... came upon some peasants… One of them straightaway threw some wheat into a pot and boiled it, and after adding a little salt, gave it to us to eat.

I would guess that if salt was rare and valuable peasants wouldn’t have any. How widespread and common was the use of salt?

[richsc]

I seem to remember that Rome early on established control over the flat salt pans around Ostia. This site discusses this, and interestingly, the changes in sea levels that affected how salt was produced.
http://salt.org.il/frame_arch.html

[M.VAL.BRUTUS]

I don't really buy into the idea of people being paid with salt, especally soldiers. Ancient soldiers really had three things to spend their the pay on; wine, women, and gear... I'd like to see the converstation that develops from a soldier walking into a brothel with a bag of salt...

[Carlton Bach]

The preciousness of salt is an old trope in folk wisdom as early as Plato. I suspect that is where the misconception originally arises from: Historically, salt was traded long distances, it was smuggled, and it was kept carefully, so it must have been very valuable. That was never true in the sense that people could not afford salt, or that it could serve as a status symbol. In the Roman world, salt was widely used as a preservative and given to livestock. There is no reason to think peasants would not have used it in food. And Rome itself was both situated on an old salt trade route and controlled salt pans early on.

The other side of the coin is, though, that salt was one of the few things that in a peasant society, you needed money to obtain. Small farmers were almost completely self-sufficient. They produced their own clothing, their own food, their own shelter and most of their own tools. But they could not produce their own salt, and they needed it to keep their herds healthy, to preserve meat and olives, and to flavour their foods. It wasn't a luxury they could forgo at will, so fluctuations in its price mattered. Gasoline is not a bad moden analogy: $10 is not a lot of money. Nothing that costs $10 would be described as precious. But $10 gas hurts.

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a lot of surviving evidence for salt prices (Szaivert/Wolters don't cite any). The agricultural writers generally assume it would be available in quantity, though. In such a context, talking of a salarium - salt money would make sense for a militia army because it would be the one thing troops could not be expected to provide from their own resources. But that is pure speculation on my part.

[Vindex]

I think the key word is value.

Wine, women and food you can get almost anywhere. An item which helps preserve food, can be used as an antisceptic for man and beast and - given sufficient quantities - is a useful "chemical" weapon. Perhaps it changes the idea of what we mean by "value".

[Dan D'Silva]

How much sodium would a Roman peasant's diet contain, in the form that it reached them? With regards to them, I would think salt would be a necessary nutritional supplement, especially since they presumably worked and sweated a lot.

[Robert]

Salt is basicly a composition of Na and Cl. Some plants do make these into salt. As the whole nervous system of all things with a spinal chord depends on the electrical current of the transport of Na and Cl over a membrane, this (meat) is also a source of salt. Remember man is an onivorous mammal and gets the needed intake of salt through a normal diet. But in its free form, it was long made from the evaporation of salt water, as it still is in some areas of France, for instance. That way, NaCl can be carried and traded in a concentrated form and can be added to food to preserve it or to enhance it's flavour. Why does it preserve food? Well, it dries out the meat by extracting water as it is very hydroscopic and inhibits bacterial growth. A full tablespoon of salt ingested can kill you through anaphylactic shock, as you bodyfluids internally spill out trying to dilute the pure salt ingested.
It was only when we started mining rocksalt in large quantities that salt became a common and cheap (and thus much overused) commodity, raking it out of seaside pans was always a labour intensive and thus costly (pound for pound) business. Transport added to the cost, so Roman salttraders have very nice steles and monuments.

[jkaler48]

In later times long distance ocean travel and exploration would have been very difficult without salt as a food preservative. This must have been true to some extent for ocean travel in Roman times even if distances were shorter and more intermediate port calls for ships common.

[Michael Kerr]

Salt in ancient times was a very important commodity simply for the fact that without refrigeration there was no other way to preserve perishable foods. Where winters were harsh, food collected in summers would have to be cured, preserved & stored (beef, pork, fish & vegetables) so I think salt trading or bartering was common at every market. The Greeks used salt as a currency in exchange for slaves where the expression “not worth his salt" originated although I have heard it could have originated in the Roman army in relation to a soldier's salt allowance & how he measured up as a soldier. Salt would be handy to a legionary sometimes just to make bad meat edible in some situations with no fresh meat available. Governments did very nicely out of tolls on salt trade so salt was very important to not only Romans but all ancient civilisations.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Epictetus]

Richard - that is a fascinating article. Thanks for the link!

So the general consensus seems to be that salt would be widely available, even to peasants. I know some commodities were subsidised or given away freely to the poor, like olive oil and bread. I have never heard of a salt dole, though, so I assume peasants must have had to get it at their local markets. Perhaps those serving Galen used their salt because they had a rich guest, and didn't use it often?

By the way, what is the opinion about soldiers being paid in salt? Is there any evidence for this besides the musings of antiquarians?

[Michael Kerr]

Epictetus wrote:

By the way, what is the opinion about soldiers being paid in salt? Is there any evidence for this besides the musings of antiquarians?

If Roman soldiers & auxiliaries were given a salt allowance I think the Batavian units would have made full use of it in their beer brewing activities in Britain.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Epictetus]

If Roman soldiers & auxiliaries were given a salt allowance I think the Batavian units would have made full use of it in their beer brewing activities in Britain.

If I understand him correctly, Pliny seems to imply it was a very ancient practice.

Even in the very honours, too, that are bestowed upon successful warfare, salt plays its part, and from it, our word "salarium" (13) is derived. That salt was held in high esteem by the ancients, is evident from the Salarian Way, so named from the fact that, by agreement, the Sabini carried all their salt by that road. King Ancus Martius gave six hundred modii of salt as a largess to the people, and was the first to establish salt-works.

(13) - Literally, "salt money"—"argentum" being understood. The term was originally applied to the pay of the generals and military tribunes. Hence our word "salary."

Pliny, Natural History, 31.41

So I had the feeling that if soldiers were ever paid in salt, it was very early in the Republic. Ancus Marcius was the legendary fourth king of Rome in the middle of the seventh century BC.

[Michael Kerr]

If you had to requisition supplies from local farms on campaign then you either consumed everything at the time or either salt it or smoke it or pickle it or if you were a hun or sarmatian put it between saddle and horse's back while you were riding for later on. I also read but cannot confirm that when soldiers as a last resort had to eat their horses they needed salt to make it edible. It makes sense that in the days before mess halls and pre packaged rations that the army gave you an allowance of salt to preserve your rations so that when livestock was in short supply you had some basic albeit not very tasty meal,. In the case of auxiliaries eg. Germans who probably wouldn't be keen on olive oil or watered wine, they would need salt for butter and beer and probably for bread and fish.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Caratacus]

Salt (NaCl) is required by all mammalian species. The ions of sodium and also potassium (not atoms, ions are charged particles) are involved in the transport of electrical impulses between the nerve endings and hence are required for the body to function at all. It isn't a luxury - it's vital for the health of the animal (including us). I read somewhere that there was a Roman torture, whereby the victim was fed the most delicious meals, but devoid of any salt. Misery in the face of plenty. Even today, farmers will throw out lumps of salt into their fields for cattle to lick and animals in Africa will travel vast distances for a 'salt lick'.

Salt is also used as a preservative, and has been for thousands of years. Bacteria cannot live in high salt concentrations (or sugar, for that matter). Osmosis ensures that the water inside the bacterial cell membrane seeps out to try and dilute the concentrated solution on the other side of the cell wall. In effect, the cell dehydrates. One of the Celtic cultures is named for Hallstaat - literally, 'salt town'. Salt itself is not hygroscopic - although natural Rock Salt may appear to be. This, however, is due to the presence of either calcium or magnesium chlorides (or both), which are hygroscopic. Pure salt does not have this property of being able to attract moisture from the air.

I can well believe that Roman soldiers were once paid, at least in part, in salt. Food without it quickly becomes tasteless. It would also be vital if the soldier's unit was based some distance from the source of the salt. Transport costs would add to its value as a commodity. It has been suggested that the site of Rome itself was due to the fact that the set of hills that eventually became The Eternal City controlled passage along the coastal plain for the salt trade between Ostia and places further up and down the Italian peninsular.

Mike Thomas
(Caratacus)

[caiusbeerquitius]

Here´s a quite good read:
J. Blei, Die Saline Bad Reichenhall - Überlegungen zu herrschaftlichen Besitzverhältnissen und Handelsmechanismen von der Römerzeit bis zu den Bajuwaren, in: P.Herz, P. Schmid, O. Stoll (Hrsg.), Ökonomie und Politik. Facetten europäischer Geschichte im Imperium Romanum und dem frühen Mittelalter, Berlin 2011, S. 151–170.