How much could a average roman worker earn each year?

[crazyorc]

Wiki suggests 1200 sesters, which is more than that of a legionary. Poor soldiers!

[Flavius Nevitta]

Would be nice if you could tell us which timeframe...

soldiers pay changed several time during the empire.

In general their pay was kept pretty low but you shouldn't forget that they got food, a rather high one time payment upon entering and retiring, some kind of insurance and spoils. one of the most important parts of soldiers pay are the donativa, which are often not included in calculations of soldier's pay because they happen irregularly and differ in hight. Those donations happen after ascending to the thrown, emperor's birthday and death, victory or some other important occasion and are rather high.

Additionally soldiers could advance to higher ranks of payments after some time (1 and 1/2, double,....)

[IronBrig4]

That depended on which profession they were in as well as the time period. For example, Diocletian had a pay scale for every vocation in the empire. I'm not sure if you can find that online but it's very informative.

[DAVIDE]

II Cent. BC

Legionary 120 denarii per year + natural goods as wheat


Caesar era


Legionary 225 denarii per year


Augustus era


Legionary 225 denarii per year +10 aes grave
Pretorian 375 denarii per year + 10 aes grave
Centurion 3750-20000 denarii per year + 10 aes grave


Domitian era


Legionary 300 denarii per year
Pretorian 1000 denarii per year
Centurion 5000-20000 denarii per year



Settimius severus era


Legionary 459 denarii per year
Centurion 8300-33000 denarii per year



Caracalla era


Legionary 600 denarii per year



Gordian era


Legionary 1200 antonianii per year




End 3rd cent. AD



Legionary 1800 nummi per year or 360 argenteii per year



Valentian I


LEgionary 5 aureii per year
cavalry 9 aureii per year



1 Denarius = 4 Sestertii = 16 Aes grave.
1 aureus = 25 denarii.
1 antoninianus = 2 denarii
yearly cost of a legion in III century BC: 600.000 denarii
yearly cost of a legion at the time of caesar: 3.000.000 denarii






Cost of life, II century BC




800 kg of flour = 60 denarii
68 litres of olive oil = 10 denarii
400 litres of wine = 15 denarii
1 piece of bread = 1 aes grave



Cost of life, I century AD


800 kg of flour = 130 denarii
68 litres of olive oil = 25 denarii
400 litres of wine = 35 denarii




According to bancary register of Iucundus:


income of a medium farm (100 jugerii) = 10.000-20.000 sestertii per year
value of farming land for trading = 5000 sestertii per jugerii





Bibliografy:

Balbi De Caro La Banca a Roma Quasar edizioni
Kennet Harl Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 BC to AD 700,
The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimora-London 1996
Andrew Burnett Coniage in the roman world
Seaby, London 1987
Fiorenzo Catalli Monete dell?Italia antica
Libreria dello Stato IPZS Roma 1995
Forenzo Catalli Numismatica greca e romana
Libreria dello Stato IPZS Roma 2003

[Steve Holt]

+rep nice post

[conon394]

Soldiers do however represent a tiny minority of the population.

Perhaps the best widely available thoughts on the issue can be found a the PSWPC site - the various papers by Walter Scheidel (and of course the papers he already has in production). [http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pape...scheidel.html]

The best of the lot for this question is the first part of this paper: http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs...del/030801.pdf

The part where WS cites the work Robert Allen who attempted to construct consumption baskets for Romans (the 2 cited are 'Respectable' and 'Subsitance') and than compare that against prices and wages accross the Roman empire and time.

This is critical since wages by themselves tell you little, later for example one can find the statrtling bit of information that for example the avegae unskilled wage in democratic Athens was profoundly higher than any other classical civilization - quite unrivialed anywhere untill the modern dutch economy and early industrial britian (abit using cruder methodology). The unskilled wage in Rome was comparativly normal and rather more substiance in nature.