How Much Did a Roman Soldier Actually Get Paid ?

January 1st, AD 81. A Roman camp outside Alexandria. The clerk reads your pay: 247½ drachmas. Then he keeps reading. Hay. Food. Boots. A festival you didn't choose. Clothing. Before a single coin touches your hand, 182 drachmas are gone. This is a real papyrus pay slip of a real legionary, Quintus Julius Proculus. Follow one soldier's purse, coin by coin, for twenty-five years: the 75 denarii of travel money, ten asses a day, the army as your landlord and grocer, the bank under the sacred standards, the centurion who sold days off, the emperor who refused to pay a bonus and lasted seven months, the gold of Jerusalem, Domitian's first raise in a century, the rebel who stole the soldiers' savings, and the 3,000 denarii waiting at the very end. And who really paid for it. Chapters: 0:00 The pay slip 1:10 A real document 2:25 The price of a signature 4:50 Ten coins a day 7:24 The pay slip, line by line 9:23 The bank of the standards 10:46 The man with the vine stick 12:15 The year of four emperors 13:02 How Otho gave you a raise 14:01 The gold of Jerusalem 15:23 The first raise in a hundred years 16:18 The rebel who stole the savings 17:25 The last morning 19:06 Opening the purse 20:39 The hardest number 21:44 The line is still there Sources: Papyrus pay records of Q. Julius Proculus (P. Gen. Lat. 1), the letter of Apion (BGU 423), Tacitus (Annals, Histories), Suetonius (Galba, Domitian), Josephus (Jewish War), Vegetius, Cassius Dio, Columella, Cicero, Res Gestae of Augustus. #history #ancientrome #money