Salt in Roman Times

[TraderTrey9785]

Tonight while I was finishing up my shepherd's pie, adding a little salt and pepper to the top, I began to wonder about salt in Rome. I had heard the salt was very valuable and that at a time, Roman soldiers were actually paid in salt. I was wondering if there was any truth to that, and if so, how much were they actually paid? I know that we get our modern term "salary" from salt, so I'm assuming that somewhere in Roman History, this was the case.

Thanks!

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

Just out of memory now I'm sure that the Romans used salt but because it was valuable in a much lesser extend than we do today. Therefore for Roman cooking use garum which is a salty fish sauce. If you don't wanna try to do it yourself you could use as a substitute Vietnamese fish sauce.

The user Carlton Bach could definitely tell you more about this topic since he's a passionate cook.

[Carlton Bach]

Salt most certainly cost more in Roman times than it does today, but I doubt it could ever be classed as 'valuable' in any meaningful sense. At any rate, it was transported overland in bulk - Rome is on a neuralgic point of the old 'Salt route' running up Italy.

As to the question of Roman cuisine, it is true that the cookbook of Apicius rarely mentions salt, but adds garum to almost every recipe. However, I doubt this is a matter of salt being too expensive but rather of garum enjoying the higher social status. At any rate, the main ingredient in garum is salt, so as a way of economising on that it's a non-starter. Anthimus, a sixth-century physician and dietician who is violently opposed to the use of garum,. suggests salt in many recipes that probably reflect non-garum using Roman cuisine fairly well, including using it directly as a consiment and basting roast pork with brine (which is truly excellent). Cato suggests that a modius of salt will last one person for a year. In Diocletian's price edict, that quantity costs 100 denarii communes, which means an average person would work 2-4 days to afford it. That does not seem excessively dear, but not dirt cheap, either.

We know salt was used as a preservative for fish and meat and animals were given it to lick. It seems that it was mostly produced by evaporation from seawater (by natural processes in the Medietrranean, by use of fire in Roman Britain) and traded over at least medium distances. I don't recall anything about different grades and types, but would be surprised if there hadn't been given the degree to which Roman haute cuisine was regional and terroir-obsessed. Similar gradations existed in both medieval europe (where north Germans sailed as far as Gascony to get the coveted Bay salt) and medieval Islam (where many recipes specify Andarani rock salt in preference to inferior sea salt). Pliny would be the most promising avenue of research, but I don't have it handy right now. It also appears that in the Principate, salt production was at least partly under imperial monopoly control.