Why were the Triarii differently equipped?

[Dan Howard]

"In 406 BC, the people’s tribunes objected to the proposal of the soldiers serving during winter and summer on the basis the soldier’s pay was a loan with interest, because the men would be away on campaign for longer than six months, it would cost the soldiers more to repay the war tax than the amount of money the state was paying each individual soldiers. (Livy 5 10)"

Please forgive me, but I cannot make sense of this paragraph.

Perseus has a better translation.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text...99.02.0026

"And now, to crown all, they even had to pay a war-tax, so that when they returned, worn out by toil and wounds, and last of all by age, and found all their land untilled through want of the owner's care, they had to meet this demand out of their wasted property and return to the State their pay as soldiers many times over, as though they had borrowed it on usury."

These kinds of discussions can't really go anywhere unless one is using the original text. Relying on translations leaves too much room for misconceptions and inaccuracies. Not only do we have to decide on the veracity of the original author but we also have to deal with possible obfuscations by the translator. I, like Max, have a scientific background and find it offensive when the sources are deliberately mistreated to support a preconceived idea.