Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Pay in the Roman army was defined by the annual stipendium received by a Roman soldier, of whatever rank he was, from the Republican era until the Later Roman Empire. It constituted the main part of the Roman soldier's income, who from the end of the Republic began to receive, in addition to the spoils of war , prize money called donativa .
The much lower remuneration for 4th-century soldiers is reflected in total army costs. Duncan-Jones estimates the total annual cost of the military in c. 150 AD at c. 670 million sesterces . [ 22 ] This is 167.5 million denarii.
[5] [6] Livy mentions that the stipendium was established in the year 407 BCE during the war with Veii; he states that the patricians in the Senate decreed that payment shall be provided for Roman soldiers from the coffers of the Senate. Previously, according to Livy, Roman soldiers had financed their own military service. [7]
With money as the mainstay of the Roman Republic’s military success, the collection and use of tributum allowed Rome and its allies to pay their soldiers and bestow their armies with food, transport, equipment and support personnel, which effectively enabled Rome’s legions to remain in the field for lengths at a time. [3]
All soldiers of the army were paid 168 sestertii (equivalent to 42 denarii) [h] each from the spoils of war, officers were paid twice as much while cavaliers were paid thrice as much. [77] The loot Vulso brought to Rome was used by the Roman Senate to pay off the debts it had incurred during the Second Punic War.
Even after the reduction in the number of Roman legions from about fifty to twenty-eight (500,000 down to 300,000 full-time soldiers and auxiliaries) the Roman state under Augustus still spent 640 million sesterces on military costs alone per annum (with total state expenses hovering around 1,000 million). [99]
During the Roman Republic, and the subsequent Principate, it was regarded as the second highest military decoration a citizen could aspire to (the Grass Crown being held in higher regard) and was rewarded for saving the lives of fellow Roman citizens (cives) or for standing one's ground in war.
The Roman army (Latin: exercitus Romanus) served ancient Rome and the Roman people, enduring through the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 476/AD 1453), including the Western Roman Empire (collapsed AD 476/480) and the Eastern Roman Empire (collapsed AD 1453).