State assumes the selling of salt
Salt—the mining, the processing, the buying and the selling of it—was central to the wellbeing of any community. Ancient Rome was no exception. The German historian Mommsen tells us in his History of Rome Vol. 1-5:
The legend indeed, which has its definite explanation of the origin of everything, professes to tell us that the Roman possessions on the right bank of the Tiber, the “seven hamlets” (-septem pagi-), and the important salt-works at its mouth, were taken by king Romulus from the Veientes, and that king Ancus fortified on the right bank the -tete de pont-, the “mount of Janus” (-Janiculum-), and founded on the left the Roman Peiraeus, the seaport at the river’s “mouth” (-Ostia-).
Salt played a role in politics: “In fact during the first period after the expulsion of the kings we meet with various measures which were intended, or at any rate seemed to be intended, to gain the favor of the commons for the government of the nobility especially on economic grounds. The port-dues were reduced; when the price of grain was high, large quantities of corn were purchased on account of the state, and the trade in salt was made a state-monopoly, in order to supply the citizens with corn and salt at reasonable prices
The anti-sumptuary provisions of the Twelve Tables fulminated against purple bier cloths and gold ornaments placed beside the dead; and the banishment of all silver plate, excepting the salt-cellar and sacrificial ladle, from the Roman household, so far at least as sumptuary laws and the terror of censorial censure could banish it: even in architecture we shall again encounter the same spirit of hostility to luxury whether noble or ignoble.
Salt also played an important role in ritual. Mommsen in his discussion of the paterfamilias and his household mentions a salted cake as an important part of the marriage ritual:
The family formed a unity. It consisted of the free man who upon his father’s death had become his own master, and the spouse whom the priests by the ceremony of the sacred salted cake (confarreatio) had solemnly wedded to share with him water and fire, with their son and sons’ sons and the lawful wives of these, and their unmarried daughters and sons’ daughters, along with all goods and substance pertaining to any of its members.
After the end of the 3rd Punic war and the destruction of Carthage, the site of the city was reported to have been ritually sown with salt so that nothing could again grow there.
Salt also played a role in foreign affairs. After the defeat of Macedonia, the Roman Senate abolished the monarchy, broke up the country into 4 federated entities, prevented intercourse between the populations and banned the import of salt and the export of timber for ship-building. This ban was also aimed at Rhodes which had sided with the Macedonian monarchy against Rome and it injured that island’s commercial power.
Salt played a role in social and tax policy. “[a] new salt-tariff… fixing the scale of prices at which salt was to be sold in the different districts of Italy, as it was no longer possible to furnish salt at one and the same price to the Roman burgesses now scattered throughout the land; but, as the Roman government probably supplied the burgesses with salt at cost price, if not below it, this financial measure yielded no gain to the state.”
Salt was an integral part of the transaction between master and slave “Every slave, even the steward himself, had all the necessaries of life delivered to him on the master’s behalf at certain times and according to fixed rates; and upon these he had to subsist. He received in this way clothes and shoes, which were purchased in the market, and which the recipients had merely to keep in repair; a quantity of wheat monthly, which each had to grind for himself; as also salt, olives or salted fish to form a relish to their food, wine, and oil.”
Salt was also significant in the development of infrastructure. The Via Salaria, was an important road that lead from the porta salaria in a northeasterly direction toward the Adriatic coast. Some scholars think that this road was used by the Sabines, in very early times, for accessing salt from the sea.
Salt was also significant in the arts. In his discussion of the art of miming, Mommsen lists the “salt-man” as a stock figure along with the fuller, rope maker, dyer and female weaver.