STĪPENDĬUM

a pension or pay, from stipem and pen do , because before silver was coined at Rome the copper-money in use was paid by weight and not by tale. According to Livy, the practice of giving pay to the Roman soldiers was not introduced till B.C. 405, on the occasion of the taking of Tarracina or Anxur. It is probable, however, that they received pay before this time, but, since it was not paid regularly, its first institution was referred to this year. In B.C. 403 a certain amount of pay was a igned to the knights also, or Equites , p. 156 , b . This, however, had reference to the citizens who po e ed an equestrian fortune, but had no horse ( equus public us ) a igned to them by the state, for it had always been customary for the knights of the 18 centuries to receive pay out of the common treasury, in the shape of an allowance for the purchase of a horse, and a yearly pension of 2000 a es for its keep. [ Aes Equestre ; Aes Hordearium .] In the time of the republic the pay of a legionary soldier amounted to two oboli, or 3⅓ a es; a centurion received double, and an eques or horseman triple. Polybius states that foot soldiers also received in corn every month an allowance ( demensum ) of ⅔ of an Attic medimnus, or about 2 bushels of wheat: the horsemen 7 medimni of barley and 2 of wheat. The infantry of the allies received the same allowance as the Roman: the horsemen 1⅓ medimni of wheat and 5 of barley. But there was this difference, that the allied forces received their allowances as a gratuity; the Roman soldiers, on the contrary, had deducted from their pay the money value of whatever they received in corn, armour, or clothes. There was indeed a law pa ed by C. Gracchus, which provided that besides their pay the soldiers should receive from the treasury an allowance for clothes; but this law seems either to have been repealed or to have fallen into disuse. The pay was doubled for the legionaries by Julius Caesar before the civil war. He also gave them corn whenever he had the means, without any restrictions. Under August us it appears to have been raised to 10 a es a day (three times the original sum). It was still further increased by Domitian. The praetorian cohorts received twice as much as the legionaries.