or, as it may be translated,—
“Such sums as a full Colonel’s coffers swell,
He flings to Lola, or to Laura Bell!”
But this must have been in very late times, previous to which frugality, modesty, and indifferent pay were ever the Tribune’s share of the national virtues and their consequences, lauded by Livy. The first Cæsar doubled the salarium of the army, and decreed that it should never be reduced. His successors followed the example of increase. Augustus fixed the salt-money at ten asses a day, and by the time of Domitian it was considerably more than double that amount. From that period, the soldiery fed better, and fought worse, than ever. Up to the time of the Empire they had been frugal livers, and were not above preparing the rations of corn allowed them with their own hands: some ground it in hand-mills, others pounded it between stones, and the hastily-baked cakes were eaten contentedly upon the turf, with nothing better to wash them down than pure water, or, at best, posca, which was water mixed with vinegar,—and a very wholesome beverage, too, in hot weather.
The Jewish dispensation, unlike that of the early Olympian theology, enforced the use of salt in all sacrificial ceremonies. That of the Dead Sea was abundant; and Galen pronounced it as the most favourable for seasoning, and for promoting digestion. The Greeks learned to call it “divine,” and at last consecrated it to their gods. Spilling salt was accounted as unlucky in the days when “young Time counted his birthdays by the sun,” as in these modern times when the schoolmaster is abroad,—sometimes too much abroad.
Ancus Martius was the first of the Roman Kings who levied a duty on salt. He was not visited by the gods—as legends say other Kings were who created such imposts—by some dire calamity. The bad example of Ancus Martius has continued over nearly the whole of Europe; and a slave cannot eat salt to his bread without paying tribute to the King.
The word “salt” was often used for life itself. When Dordalus says to Toxilus, in the “Persa,” “Eodem mihi pretio sal præhibetur quæ tibi,”—“I get my salt at the same price as you do,”—he simply means that his manner of life is as good as that of Toxilus, and that a slave-merchant is as respectable as the very best-fed of slaves themselves. Catullus employs the word to denote beauty; other poets use it to signify virtues of various kinds; and in Terence we find a man without salt to mean a man without sense. Plutarch was not wrong when he styled salt “the condiment of condiments.” I do not know that it has ever been used to point a proverb with a contemptuous meaning, except in Greece, where he who had nothing to dine upon was called a “salt-licker.” Rome, where it was of such commercial importance, honoured it more by giving to the road along which it was conveyed the name of “the Salarian Way.”
There were people who never knew its use, as in Epeiros; some who have steadily rejected it, as the Bathurst tribe in Australia. The Peruvians delighted in it, and ate it mixed with hot pepper and bitter herbs, as a sort of “sweetmeat.” How sacred it is in Arabia, we all know; and, in illustration of it, I have heard of an Arab burglar accidentally letting his tongue come in contact, as he was plundering a house by night, with a piece of salt. He instantly deemed he had partaken of the owner’s hospitality, and he departed without booty. Could Christian thieves be so influenced, we should salt our plate-baskets and cash-boxes nightly!
In Sicily a salt is spoken of that melts only in fire, and hardens in water. At Utica, one of the great salt suppliers of the ancient world, it lay about in such huge mounds, hardened by the sun and moon, that the pickaxe would scarcely penetrate it. In Arabia whole cities were once built of it, the blocks of salt being cemented by water. It is still procured with most difficulty in Abyssinia, where the clouds are supposed to deposit the crystal in sandy plains, of heat so furious, that it is only during one or two hours of the night that the seekers of it dare dash into the locality, and carry off, as hastily as possible, what they seek. It is procured far more pleasantly in those parts of Chili where it is found deposited on the leaves of plants. Off the warmer coasts of South America, and the still hotter shores of Africa, blocks weighing from one to two hundred weight have been picked up. Some writers tell us that lakes are nothing more than salt plains in solution; and others, that salt plains are merely lakes congealed. However this may be, it is known that generally four gallons of water produce one of salt; but there is great difference of result in various localities, some water yielding a sixth, other only a sixteenth. The deep sea-water is the most highly productive. There are various strange ingredients, too, used in different places to make the salt “grain” properly. White of egg, butter, ale, and even blood, are employed to produce the desired result. In its fossil or mineral state it is nowhere seen to such great advantage as in the mines of Williska, in Poland. I have seen those near Salzburg, in southern Austria; but these are mere salt-cellars, compared with the Polish mine, which forms a large subterranean city, has its streets, citizens, and coteries, and is an underground republic, many of the natives of which die without seeing a blade of grass, or a gleam of sunlight, upon the bosom of the upper earth.
Finally, salt is the most natural stimulant for the digestive organs; but it should be remembered that too much of it is almost as bad as too little. The lowering of the price of salt, a consequence of the abolition of the duty, was beneficial to the poor, and ruinous to the worm-doctors. It is a singular production. In small quantities it is a stimulating manure; in large quantities it begets sterility. A little of it accelerates putrefaction, while a large quantity prevents it. Farther, it is to be remembered,—and I have mentioned the fact in another page,—that the salt in salted meat is not (whatever it may once have been) the table salt, the use of which is so favourable to digestion. In the meat it undergoes a chymical change, by which it deteriorates itself as well as the object to which it is applied. “Sweet salt” was the name once given to sugar; and in reference to this latter production, it may be safely averred, that its introduction worked a considerable change in society. And it appears to have been early added to that “significant luxury,” wheat. In Isaiah xliii. 24 there is an allusion made to it in these words: “Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of sacrifices.” And again, in Jeremiah vi. 20: “To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and sweet cane from a far country?” It would seem, however, that though the sweet cane may have been known, its uses were not very speedily appreciated, or, if they were, that they were for a long time forgotten. Thus, as late as the thirteenth century of our era, a writer speaks of a novel sort of salt that has been discovered, the flavour of which was sweet, and, as he suggests, might be found acceptable to sick persons, because of its soothing and cooling properties. “Honey out of the rock,” which was the sweetener most early noticed in Scripture, fell into comparative disuse, after sugar had become a necessary of life, after being first a medicine, and then a luxury. The Spaniards received it from the Arabs, and familiarized it in Europe. Its first settlement beyond the Continent was in Madeira, and at length it found a congenial soil in the islands of the Western Indies. God gave the gift, but man has discovered how to abuse it to his own destruction; and, from the sweet food offered by an angel, he has distilled the fire-water, which slays like the pestilence. But to return, for a moment, from the sweets to the salts, and especially to the latter in the form of brine.