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However, salt was often difficult to obtain, so it was a highly valued trade item, and was considered a form of currency by many societies, including Rome. According to Pliny the Elder, Roman soldiers were paid in salt, from which the word salary is derived, although this is disputed by historians.
Within the Roman Empire, salt was considered a fundamental part of empire building. The first of the great Roman Empire roads, the Via Salaria or Salt Road was built for transporting salt. [10] The Roman army required salt for their soldiers and horses and often Roman soldiers were paid in salt as it was seen as a valuable currency at the time.
A salt road (also known as a salt route, salt way, saltway, or salt trading route) refers to any of the prehistoric and historical trade routes by which essential salt was transported to regions that lacked it.
The Via Salaria owes its name to the Latin word for "salt", since it was the route by which the Sabines living nearer the Tyrrhenian Sea came to fetch salt from the marshes at the mouth of the river Tiber, the Campus Salinarum (near Portus). [1] Peoples nearer the Adriatic Sea used it to fetch it from production sites there. [2]
Salting the earth, or sowing with salt, is the ritual of spreading salt on the sites of cities razed by conquerors. [1] [2] It originated as a curse on re-inhabitation in the ancient Near East and became a well-established folkloric motif in the Middle Ages. [3] The best-known example is the salting of Shechem as narrated in the Biblical Book ...
SD Bullion researched the history of salt and gold, from their convergence in value long ago to the modern-day difference in cost between the two.
Salt production in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt (1670) Ponds near Maras, Peru, fed from a mineral spring and used for salt production since pre-Inca times. All through history, the availability of salt has been pivotal to civilization.
Salt, which in its pure form was an expensive commodity in Rome, was the fundamental seasoning and the most common salty condiment was a fermented fish sauce known as garum. Locally available seasonings included garden herbs, cumin, coriander, and juniper berries. Imported spices included pepper, saffron, cinnamon, and fennel.