''Aerarium'', from ''aes'' ("bronze, money") + -''ārium'' ("place for"), was the name given in
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...
to the
public treasury, and in a secondary sense to the public finances.
''Aerarium populi Romani''
The main ''aerarium'', that of the Roman people, was the ''aerarium Saturni'' located below the
Temple of Saturn
The Temple of Saturn (Latin: ''Templum Saturni'' or '' Aedes Saturni''; ) was an ancient Roman temple to the god Saturn, in what is now Rome, Italy. Its ruins stand at the foot of the Capitoline Hill at the western end of the Roman Forum. Th ...
at the foot of the
Capitoline hill. The Roman state stored here financial and non-financial state documents – including
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I.
Roman law also den ...
s and
''senatus consulta'' – along with the public treasury. Laws did not become valid until they were deposited there. It also held the
standards of the Roman legions; during the
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...
, the urban
quaestor
A quaestor ( , ; ; "investigator") was a public official in ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times.
In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officia ...
s managed it under the supervision and control of the Senate. By the classical republican period, the Senate had exclusive authority to disburse funds from it.
Caesar replaced quaestorian administration with the administration of two
aedile
Aedile ( , , from , "temple edifice") was an elected office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings () and regulation of public festivals. They also had powers to enforce public orde ...
s. In 28 BC,
Augustus
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...
transferred the ''aerarium'' to two ''praefecti aerarii'', chosen annually by the Senate from ex-
praetor
''Praetor'' ( , ), also ''pretor'', was the title granted by the government of ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected ''magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to disch ...
s. In AD 23, these were replaced by two praetors (''praetores aerarii'' or ''ad aerarium''), selected by lot during their term of office.
Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...
in 44 restored the quaestors, but had them nominated by the emperor for three years. In 56,
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...
substituted two ex-praetors selected under the same conditions.
By the time of the late republic, the provincial governors had their own provincial treasuries, called a (initially referring to a "money bag"). Over time, the governors' exchequers merged with that of the emperor into an imperial
fiscus. However, after a time, as the power of the emperors further increased, this distinction between senatorially-administered and provincial treasuries became irrelevant.
Revenues from the
Senatorial provinces increasingly became transferred from the to the through the early
Principate
The Principate was the form of imperial government of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the Dominate. The principate was ch ...
. By the reign of
Honorius and the
Theodosian code, any vestigial distinctions had fallen away.
The extent to which records were centralised in the ''aerarium'' may be exaggerated. The various reforms done at previous times may imply negligent management, falsification, or loss of records. Even in the Republican period, Cicero lamented the extent to which the public records were managed and in later periods, the extent to which the public records were really used for reference is controversial: scholars, eg Mommsen, have argued that the sources of law in the later empire were not based on state records but rather those of private individuals, law schools, and provincial administrators.
''Aerarium sanctius''
In addition to the common treasury, supported by the general taxes and charged with the ordinary expenditure, there was a special reserve fund, also in the Temple of Saturn, the ''aerarium sanctum'' (or ''sanctius''). This fund probably originally consisted of the
spoils of war. Afterwards it was maintained chiefly by a five per cent tax on the value of all
manumitted slaves. This fund was not to be touched except in cases of extreme necessity.
This continued until 49 BC when
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...
, after seizing the city of Rome during the
civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
looted this special fund.
''Aerarium militare''
Besides creating the ''fiscus'', Augustus also established in AD 6 a military treasury ''(
aerarium militare)'' as a fund for veterans' retirement benefits. It was first endowed by 170 million sesterces of the emperor's own funds, supported by new taxes, a five per cent
inheritance tax
International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and pro ...
and a one per cent sales tax on auctions. Its administration was in the hands of three ''praefecti aerarii militaris''. At first these were appointed by lot, but afterwards by the emperor, from ex-praetors, for three years.
''Tribuni aerarii''
The ''tribuni aerarii'' ("tribunes of the treasury") have been the subject of much discussion. They are supposed by some to be identical with the ''curatores tribuum'', and to have been the officials who, under the
Servian organization, levied the war-tax (
tributum) in the tribes and the
poll-tax on the ''
aerarii''. They also acted as paymasters of the
equites
The (; , though sometimes referred to as " knights" in English) constituted the second of the property/social-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an ().
Descript ...
and of the soldiers on service in each tribe. By the
lex Aurelia (70 BC) the list of judices was composed, in addition to senators and equites, of tribuni aerarii. Whether these were the successors of the above, or a new order closely connected with the equites, or even the same as the latter, is uncertain.
According to
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th ce ...
, they were persons who possessed the
equestrian census, but no public horse. They were removed from the list of judices by
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...
, but replaced by Augustus. According to
Madvig, the original tribuni aerarii were not officials at all, but private individuals of considerable means, quite distinct from the curatores tribuum, who undertook certain financial work connected with their own tribes. Then, as in the case of the equites, the term was subsequently extended to include all those who possessed the property qualification that would have entitled them to serve as tribuni aerarii.
Publicum
Prior to the
decemvirate in 451 BC, there was a separate institution known as the ''publicum''.
On a number of occasions it is recorded that various patricians incurred the anger of the plebs by paying the spoils from war into the publicum rather than the aerarium, for example
Quintus Fabius Vibulanus in 485 BC following a
victory
The term victory (from ) originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal duel, combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes a strategic vi ...
over the
Volsci and
Aequi. From this it has been argued that the publicum was a fund administered by the patricians, but this has been disputed by others.
[ Albert Schwegler, ''Römische Geschichte'', II, 286]
References
Citations
Sources
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External links
Aerarium(article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities)
{{Authority control
Economy of ancient Rome
Government of the Roman Empire
Economic history of Italy