"Salary" comes from the Latin word for salt — but Roman soldiers weren't paid in it

English salary descends from Latin salarium, “an allowance, a stipend,” which in turn comes from sal, “salt,” by way of the adjective salarius, “pertaining to salt.” The link between salt and money is genuine and old.

The famous story attached to it is not. You will often read that Roman soldiers were paid in salt, or given salt money to buy it — the supposed root of being “worth your salt.” But no ancient source actually says this. The salt connection is real; the salt payment is a later invention, extrapolated from the etymology and a couple of misread lines in Pliny and Livy.

The word and the salt are linked. The legionary buying his rations with it is folklore.

What the records do show is a salarium as a fixed cash payment to officials — an allowance, not a sack of seasoning. So the next time someone tells you payday began at the salt cellar, you can dock them an etymological half-measure.