The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook

The soldiers 21
The annual cost of the legions, auxilia, and navy in the early first
century AD may have amounted to more than 400 million sesterces, a
large proportion of the empire’s disposable income; a pay rise will have
had serious financial implications (Hopkins JRS 1980:124–5; Campbell
1984:161–5, 171–6).
18 Augustus, Res Gestae, 17
In the consulship of Marcus Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius (AD 6) I
transferred 170,000,000 sesterces from my own property to the military
treasury, which had been set up on my advice in order to pay discharge
benefits to soldiers who had served for twenty years or more.
Dio (55. 25) mistakenly believed that soldiers’ wages were paid from the military
treasury. The new treasury (administered by three prefects of praetorian rank)
was to be financed by a 5 per cent tax on the estates of Roman citizens, except
those of the very poor and those left to near relatives, and a 1 per cent tax on the
sale of goods by auction. The introduction of the first direct tax on property in
Italy since 167 BC shows the importance that Augustus attached to military
superannuation. By contributing such a large sum personally (which would have
provided benefits for about 14,000 men) he emphasized his personal connection
with the army. But he was clearly finding it difficult to sustain the cost of discharge
payments from his own funds; hence men were retained long after the official
service period (see text no. 20). Tiberius was to protest that the resources of the
state were inadequate to pay praemia unless soldiers were not discharged until
after twenty years’ service (Tacitus, Annals 1. 78).
19 Augustus, Res Gestae, 15. 3–16
In my fifth consulship (29 BC) I gave 1,000 sesterces out of booty to
every one of the colonists settled from my soldiers; about 120,000 men
in the colonies received this benefaction in celebration of my triumph.
I paid money to the towns for the lands which I granted to soldiers
in my fourth consulship (30 BC) and subsequently in the consulship of
Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Lentulus Augur (14 BC). The sum which
I paid out for lands in Italy amounted to about 600,000,000 sesterces,
and that expended for provincial lands to about 260,000,000. In the
recollection of contemporaries I was the first and only person to have
done this of all those who founded colonies of soldiers in Italy or the
provinces. Subsequently, in the consulships of Tiberius Nero and Gnaeus
Piso (7 BC), of Gaius Antistius and Decimus Laelius (6 BC), of Gaius
Calvisius and Lucius Pasienus (4 BC), of Lucius Lentulus and Marcus
Messalla (3 BC), and of Lucius Caninius and Quintus Fabricius (2 BC),