Continuous and reliable supplies of salt were a matter, of such importance that
the establishment of early settlements, the rise and decay of civilisations, demographic
shifts of populations and the development of agriculture, were intimately related
to the immediate availability of salt. The power to control a population's salt
supply, was power over life and death. Erratic sea level changes, particularly in
the Mediterranean, prevented some of these civilisations from obtaining consistent
salt supplies, causing them to migrate or decay, conquer or succumb to others.
Until industrial means of extraction were devised, salt was only available as visible
and exposed rock outcrops in arid regions, and as dried out salt cake on the shores
of seas and salt lakes. In areas with wet climates, the protruding salt dissolved
making it almost impossible to discover. It is probably this, more than for any
other reason, that some of the great civilisations first developed near deserts
and desert climates, for example the Mediterranean region, at the edges of the arid
zones.
Eventually, salt routes criss-rossed the globe. One of the most travelled led from
Morocco south across the Sahara to Timbuktu. Ships bearing salt from Egypt to Greece
crossed the Mediterranean and the Aegean. Venice's glittering wealth was founded
on salt, which was exchanged in Constantinople for the spices of Asia. Moorish merchants
traded salt gram for gram for gold, and in Abyssinia, slabs of rock salt, called
'amoles', were used as money, a practice too of some central African tribes.
Not only did salt flavour and preserve food, it made a good antiseptic which is
why the Roman word for salt crystals (sal), is derived from Salus, the goddess of
health.
Of all the famed Roman roads, one of the busiest was the Via Salaria, the salt route
carrying merchants' oxcarts full of the precious crystals up the Tiber from the
salt pans at Ostia. A Roman soldier's pay - consisting in part of salt - was known
as "salarium argentum" from which the word "salary" derived. A soldier's salary
was cut if he "was not worth his salt", a phrase originating from the Greek and
Roman payment for slaves with salt.
In the Middle Ages, salt became linked with superstition and spilling salt was considered
a portent of doom. (In Leonardo da Vinci's painting 'The Last Supper", the scowling
Judas is shown with an overturned salt cellar in front of him.) Alter spilling salt,
a pinch of it was cast over the left shoulder where evil spirits were believed to
congregate.
Until the 18th century, the social rank of guests at banquets was gauged by their
position in relation to the table's salt cellar. The host and distinguished guests
sat at the head of the table - "above the salt". People seated below the salt were
considered of little consequence.
Salt taxes imposed by governments made them rich, but also contributed to their
downfall. For centuries the French were forced to buy salt from royal depots. Louis
XVI's salt tax was so high, it became a major public grievance, adding fuel to the
fires of discontent preceding the French Revolution. As late as 1930, Gandhi led
an Indian pilgrimage to the sea to make their own salt, in protest against Britain's
high tax on salt, thus publicising their fight for independence throughout the Western
world.
The popular phrase, "a grain of salt", may be a recipe for scepticism, but there
can be no doubt about how salt has seasoned history.