Every second Wednesday, like clockwork, my salary arrives in my bank account. By Thursday, most of it is gone.

Recently, though, as I contemplated its fortnightly appearance and disappearance, I started thinking about the origin of the word “salary”. As a historian of the ancient Roman Empire, I often think about the modern legacy it continues to bestow.

It’s a common belief that the English word “salary” derives from the Latin word salarium because Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in actual blocks of salt.

Sal, the Latin word for salt, also turns up in various other salt-related words in English, from saline to salami.

While it’s an attractively neat idea, there are some significant problems with this theory. Here’s what we actually know about how Roman soldiers were paid.

There’s strong evidence salt was a valuable and widely used commodity in the ancient world. For a society without modern refrigeration, it played an important role in food preservation (particularly for meat and fish). It was also portable, so it’s not surprising that the idea of soldiers being paid in salt caught on.

Peter Gainsford, a New Zealand-based classicist, points out the English word “salary” does indeed derive from the Latin “salarium”, which translates to “stipend or money allowance”.

But, Gainsford argues, while there is a link between “salarium” and........

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