Economic status of Roman soldiers

[Calvo]

Having read several books about the Roman army, these seems to be contradicting ideas as to how well Roman soldiers were paid.

Historians like Adrian Goldsworthy suggest that Roman military pay was very modest, and an unskilled labourer in the cities could earn easily as much, but most soldiers enlisted because of the stability it offered.
Others, such as Walter Scheidel and Yann Le Bohec, challenged this idea, by claiming that although legionary pay was low compared to wages in the Roman capital, most forts were stationed at the frontiers, where the standard of living was considerably lower, and military pay probably was considered a luxury in comparison with local civilians.

Another interesting question is the difference in salaries between legionaries and auxiliaries. Officially the former earned 3 times as much as the latter, but if legionary pay was already modest, auxiliary pay would barely be able to cover the expenses of armour and weapons.
Other sources suggest that auxiliaries earned 3/4 that of legionaries, which seemed more reasonable, by the very fact that many auxiliary soldiers were known to raise families and own slaves.

[Sean Manning]

Another complication is that soldiers had many opportunities for graft. Stealing stores, selling 'spare' materials from the local fabrica, [strike]armed robbery[/strike] confiscation of surplus goods due to urgent military necessity, [strike]protection rackets[/strike] voluntary contributions by the grateful subjects ... and a centurion could collect money from his men as well as from the locals. In other circumstances soldiers might run small businesses or farm. So wages are only a rough measure of incomes.

While I haven't read it, I think that Benjamin Isaac's book on the Roman Army in the east might be useful here?

[Epictetus]

Wouldn't it also depend upon what time you were looking at? Pay changed over time, inflation was worse during different eras, some emperors gave more donatives, and some reigns (like Antonius Pius, for example) were peaceful and had few opportunities for looting.

[M. Demetrius]

Out in the provinces, where soldiers were used to help collect taxes, the opportunity for unfair taxing was ever present. Greed is not a modern invention. Extortion isn't either.

[Michael J. Taylor]

One way to put Roman military pay in perspective. We can assume that most people in the ancient world hovered around what we might call the "poverty line" in that they were just able to scrape by enough food, clothing and shelter to stay alive (and those living well below the poverty line, by definition, did not live long).

We know that Roman soldiers had deductions from their pay for food, clothing, shoes and bedding. The few pay records we have suggest that after the deductions, Roman soldiers had roughly half their pay left. Assuming the soldiers were furnished with only the bare necessities, we could therefore say that a common Roman soldier lived at 200% of the poverty line. But this would still be putting things a bit low: we know that some of the deductions were for festivals such as the Camp Saturnalia, which involved goodies like garum and beer. So if anything, a Roman ranker lived somewhat over 200% of the poverty line, and far better than the vast majority of inhabitants of the empire.

[Lyceum]

Another complication is that soldiers had many opportunities for graft. Stealing stores, selling 'spare' materials from the local fabrica, [strike]armed robbery[/strike] confiscation of surplus goods due to urgent military necessity, [strike]protection rackets[/strike] voluntary contributions by the grateful subjects ... and a centurion could collect money from his men as well as from the locals. In other circumstances soldiers might run small businesses or farm. So wages are only a rough measure of incomes.

While I haven't read it, I think that Benjamin Isaac's book on the Roman Army in the east might be useful here?

I LOL'd. There's also gambling and the like. Erm..there's a mutiny ca. 14AD by soldiers over pay who are quite able to bribe centurions. So either they had received some pay, had some saved, or were trustworthy enough for I.O.Us. Anyway I remember having to pour over this stuff as a first year another lifetime ago. Alston's article is the most important that I can think of (there have been subsequent studies, obvs, but this is pertinent to the discussion qua auxiliaries and whatnot) but I've added others.

R. Alston Roman Military Pay from Caesar to Diocletian JRS Vol. 84, (1994)
M. A. Speidel, 'Roman army pay scales', JRS 82 (1992), 87-106
M. P. Speidel, 'The pay of the auxilia', JRS 63 (1973), 141-7
P. A. Brunt, 'Pay and superannuation in the Roman Army', PBSR 18 (1950), 50-75
G. R. Watson, 'The pay of the Roman army: Suetonius, Dio and the quartum stipendium', Historia 5 (1956), 332-40

God JSTOR's format seems so ugly. Anyway, there are a lot of methodological problems even with the evidence we have, let alone what we're missing. But I do once more recommend Alston's paper as a stimulating read.

[Nathan Ross]

Donatives have already been mentioned - depending on the era, these could be quite a considerable part of a soldier's overall wealth. Accession bonuses, also paid on anniversaries, also had the advantage of being hard cash or specie and paid in a lump sum rather than instalments. By the early fourth century, a soldier could expect donatives totalling several times his annual pay.