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What did ancient Romans use for money?
Coins, just like today.Salt was also used, as Rome's major highway was called the Via Salaria (Salt Road): along that road, Roman soldiers transported salt crystals from the salt flats at Ostia up the Tiber river. In return, they received a salarium or salary, which was literally money paid to soldiers to buy salt. The old saying "worth their/its salt" (to be valuable) derives from this custom of payment during the Roman Empire.
What mineral did roman soldiers receive as their pay?
The ancient Roman scholar Pliny the Elder thought that the word salarium (salary) came from salarius (salt), and said this was because in the old days soldiers were paid in salt. However, he wriote in the mid-first century A.D. and was referring to a nonspecific and hazily remembered distant past. This was unlikely to have been the case. At most the soldiers would have received an allowance for the purchase of salt, probably because the price of salt was liable to increase at times of military conflict. The ancient Roman historian Livy wrote that pay for the soldiers was introduced in 405 B.C. when Rome decided to besiege the neighbouring Etruscan city of Veii. Livy also said that this pay was called stipendium and that a tax, which was called tributum, was raised to fund this pay. The soldiers were paid with money. The first mention of the amount of money the soldiers received was by the Greek scholar Polybius, who, writing in the second century B.C., said that they were given two (Greek) oboli per day which was the equivalent of 100 Roman asses a month.
