Military Pay

[Lothia]

Ave, Civitas,

I am wondering what the mechanics were for paying soldiers in the later Roman Empire.

I have tried working this backwards to no avail.

I can see a wagon with a strongbox being unloaded at the praetorium.

But, where did that gold come from.  More precisely, step by step, how did it get from the Imperial treasury (the dioceses or the provincial coffers) to the legion Aedes.

Through whose hands did it pass and at whose authority?

A  source book would be helpful.

As always, thanks for your help.

Tom

[Steven James]

I came across this, but not sure if it would be helpful. It concerns the mutiny of 8,000 men in Publius Scipio’s army in 206 BC, while serving in a garrison at Sucro in Iberia.

 

Livy 28.25

They were (the military tribunes), told in reply that the men did not get their pay punctually, nor their due share of credit for the part they had played in the campaign…In reply to these and similar complaints the tribunes told the men that their requests were reasonable and they would lay them before the general…Collectors were sent among the tributary states so that the soldiers might hope to receive their pay soon. An order was shortly after issued for them to assemble at New Carthage for that purpose; they might go in a body or successively in single detachments as they preferred…There (the 8,000 mutineers) was considerable hesitation as to whether they should go to receive their pay separately cohort by cohort. or all together. The latter course seemed the safer and they decided upon it.

 

Livy (28.29), claims the pay for the mutineers was a few days in arrears, owing to Scipio’s illness, and that after the ringleaders of the mutiny were executed, the rest of the soldiers that followed the mutineers were given their pay.

[Lothia]

Steven,

Interesting. I think I read this some years ago and had forgotten. Thanks.