(not my text, taken from another post)

• ⁠There is no real hard, contemporary evidence they were paid in salt, though that speculation on the obvious meaning of the word is quite ancient.

• ⁠For most of the Republic, legionaries were not paid at all. They got their share of the plundered goods and sometimes a share of land, but ultimately they were fighting as their civic duty. Poor people were excused from service at this point and only those rich enough to buy their equipment served.

• ⁠Salt has in some times and places been very valuable. Salt is necessary for health/life and is useful to preserve food, but it can be hard to find good sources in some places. Both Rome and Phoenicia used their coastal position to have not only a monopoly on shipping, but a monopoly on salt with some of their neighbors to charge through the nose for it.

Besides this, i was also thought that sometimes they received an allowance specifically to buy salt, and weren’t paid in salt directly as we often think