[throwaway1492]

I never understood the "salt scarcity in antiquity" idea. As in they could just use a splash brine water from the sea if you physiologically need salt. And transport sea water inland as needed.

[Ekaros]

It really wasn't any more scarce than let's say wheat. And price seems to have been around same level with wheat take or leave some depending on distance from production.

What really made it special was that it was commodity with possibly limited production locations, that kept extremely well and was in steady demand. So it is one thing that everyone uses and is relatively easy to tax. And the price likely was much more stable compared to food and other goods.

The large scale demand also lead to it being desirable as military target, once you control the production you are good.

[andrewflnr]

Transporting water from a well is already a pain in the neck. You think they're going to transport bulk seawater deep inland just to make their food soggy?

[kuhewa]

Seawater is alive, from the sulfate reducing microbes you'll have rotten eggs flavoured brine before the trip is over

[thaumasiotes]

No, but it's very easy to make the seawater into salt and then transport the salt.

[crabbone]

Ukrainian tradition and folklore prominently features these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumak . While the Wiki page mentions that in Ukrainian The Milky Way is called The Way of Chumaks it doesn't explain why -- but if you know the folklore, you'd immediately see that the idea is that it's the salt spillovers from their carts.

Salt was one of the most important goods that were traded over long distances. And no, technologically it wasn't advantageous to transport seawater or try to convert seawater into salt. Ukrainian city of Soledar that was prominently featured in the news last year literally means "gifting salt" -- and it has huge historical salt mines under it.

So, not only in antiquity, all the way through to the 19th century salt was one of the key goods traded over long distances. It wasn't as scarce as diamonds, but due to high demand it was still a worthwhile thing to trade.

[ponector]

Main purpose for salt was good preservation. That's why it was extremely valuable.

[lolinder]

According to the article, a Roman soldier could buy about 15 (modern) pounds of salt with a single day's wages.

Comparisons are very hard, but to put that in a bit of perspective: at an average salary of $60k/yr, a typical American today makes $165/day. So the cost in time for a Roman to buy salt would be roughly equivalent to if the price for salt today were $11/lb.

That's more expensive than it is today (I just bought salt for ~$2.50/lb), but it's a far cry from extremely valuable.

[Turing_Machine]

Yep. Some combination of drying, salting, and smoking was pretty much it.

No refrigeration. No freezing. No canning.

They used a lot of salt.

[Ekaros]

I think in that statement the "extremely" carries way too much weight.

As it would imply price to be very high. Which then would mean that regular people would not have access. But they also widely used salt. So it could not have been extremely valuable as we understand. Or maybe gasoline is extremely valuable commodity now...

[jvanderbot]

Above comment said it was not scarce, not that it wasn't valuable.

[Spooky23]

Huh? Who’s gonna pour seawater on their food or to preserve meats?

The reality was just that making salt is an unpleasant, labor intensive task. In the Roman era, this involved slaves and thus capital.