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Public treasury in ancient Rome

Aerarium, from aes ("bronze, money") + ārium ("place for"), was the name given in Ancient Rome to the public treasury, and in a secondary sense to the public finances.

The main aerarium, that of the Roman people, was the aerarium Saturni located below the Temple of Saturn at the foot of the Capitoline hill. The Roman state stored here financial and non financial state documents – including Roman laws 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 urban quaestors 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 aediles. In 28 BC, Augustus transferred the aerarium to two praefecti aerarii, chosen annually by the Senate from ex praetors. In AD 23, these were replaced by two praetors (praetores aerarii or ad aerarium), selected by lot during their term of office. Claudius in 44 restored the quaestors, but had them nominated by the emperor for three years. In 56, Nero substituted two ex praetors selected under the same conditions. 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. 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.

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.

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 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.

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 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. From this it has been argued that the publicum was a fund administered by the patricians, but this has been disputed by others.