Kinda neat to see where the image came from: https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/en-us/products/ancient-warfare-xvi-5
Glad they don’t sell these in grocery store checkout lanes, I’d probably “impulse buy” more than I could afford.
I was told there’d be salt? Or land I couldn’t maintain because I’ll be off fighting for the empire?
While the Romans themselves believed that ‘salary’ was derived from salt being paid to soldiers in lieu of wages at some point in their history, there’s no hard proof of this (other than the similarity of the words).
Roman troops at this point (~60 AD) would only receive land once their 20+ year term of service was done and their fighting days were behind them - though just as often they’d receive their discharge bonus in cold, hard cash, since that was often logistically easier.
The regular pay given to legionaries at this time was in coin - though with deductions for equipment and supplies!
deductions for equipment and supplies
OMG wat if a legionnary was fighting Asterix & Obelix and their sword got stuck in Obelix and the legionnary tagged along after they got beat up, and was like: “Excuse me? Can I have my sword back please? I have to pay for it otherwise.” Then he tags along on their adventure and at the end of the episode he finally gets back to base and is awarded for bravery.
There’s a papyrus letter of the time wherein a recruit writes to his father to ask him to send him a digging tool, because a superior officer with sticky fingers nicked his and he didn’t want to pay out the nose to get one from the quartermaster, lmao.
Keep your friends close, and your equipment closer!
Wikipedia: - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_(Roman_army)
At the time of the Punic Wars, pay was set at 2 obols per day, or one-third of a drachma (one denarius after 211 BC), for the period they were under arms.[2] In addition, each infantryman was entitled to a share of the spoils of war (prisoners were sold as slaves, as well as animals, treasure, weapons, and other goods), which were auctioned off and the proceeds distributed to officers and men according to various criteria. Centurions received twice the pay of their men, that is, four obols or two-thirds of a drachma a day. As for the food ration, infantrymen were distributed about two-thirds of an Attic medimnos of grain per month.[3]
This particular scene would fall under the Augustan section of the article, as it takes place during the reign of Nero according to the caption!
Of course I completely failed to see the caption until you pointed it out. ;)
