WordRustler

“In Italy, rules are just suggestions,” Valerio, our Vatican guide, said.

When in Rome, do as the Romans.

In the ancient world, salt was a precious commodity.  In fact, the Roman Emperors apparently controlled its distribution and taxed it.  They also paid their soldiers with salt rations.  Later, when the empire expanded and paying the army in salt grew more logistically challenging—the Emperors started to pay soldiers in cash, instead.  This monetary substitute was known as a “salarium.”

A salarium was cash in lieu of salt.

Our word “salary” derives—via a long, complex chain of historical and lexical events—from that old imperial change in custom.  (Was it a sign of Rome’s fiscal and spiritual decline to provide the Imperial grunts with sterile coins rather than a life-giving mineral?)

So, during that boring office Xmas party last week, if you made your escape by saying, “Well, I guess I need to get back to the salt mines,” perhaps you spoke more truth than you knew.