352 CRISTINA CARUSI
5 The same remark had already been made by Braudel 1979 : 178, a propos salt consumption
in the Early Modern Period being twice as much as contemporary consumption. For assess-
ing the equivalence between weight and capacity of a given amount of salt see the recom-
mendation of Colas 1985 : 20–1.
6 For this reason I cannot follow Giovannini 1985 : 375–7 and Mangas and Hernando
1990–91: 222–3, who both choose to use a current annual estimate of 2.5 kg per capita per
annum in order to assess salt consumption respectively in central and southern Italy in the
Republican era and a pre-Roman community in the Iberian peninsula.
7 For the estimated population sizes, see Hansen 1988b: esp. 12, and Hansen 2006b: 93–6.
8 Cf. Hansen 2006b: 24–34.
9 Cf. Chandezon 2003 : 402–4; Bresson 2007 : 141–3.
10 For animal consumption, cf. Kaufman 1978 : 459–60.
11 For a brief outline of the use of salt in other productive activities, cf. Carusi 2008 : 28–30.
12 Cf. Horden and Purcell 2000 : 186–90.
13 On marshy landscapes in antiquity, cf. Traina 1988; Fantasia 1999.
14 For other examples, cf. Sall. Iug. 89.8-7; [Arist.] Mir. 138 ; A r r. Anan. 1.29.1; Lycoph.
Alex. 133–5.
15 Cf. Carusi 2008 : 45–148.
16 Plin. HN 31.73–83: ‘All salt is either native or artificial; both kinds being formed in various
ways, but produced from one of these two causes, the condensation or the desiccation, of
a liquid .... Sea-water, again, spontaneously produces another kind of salt, from the foam
which it leaves on shore at high-watermark, or adhering to rocks; this being, in all cases,
condensed by the action of the sun, and that salt being the most pungent of the two which
is found upon the rocks .... Of artificial salt there are several kinds; the common salt, and
the most abundant, being made from seawater drained into salt-pans, and accompanied with
streams of fresh water; but it is rain more particularly, and, above all things, the sun, that aids
in its formation; indeed without this last it would never dry’ (trans. by Jones).
17 It is widely accepted that this section of Pliny’s Natural History is based on Theophrastus’ lost
treatise On salts, niter, and alum quoted by Diogenes Laertius (Vit. Phil. 5.42). Cf. the com-
mentaries of Serbat 1972 and Garofalo in Conte 1986.
18 Cf. Cato Agr. 24, 88, 105; Col., Rust. 7.8.9, 8.6, 12.25; Plin. HN 18.68.
19 Cf. Davaras 1980 : 2–4.
20 On charcoal burners, see Olson 1991 ; Bresson 2007 : 81–2.
21 The sea salt’s production process is hinted at also in Nicander of Colophon’s Alexipharmaca
(518–20): ‘Or else you should often administer to the patient crystallized salt (ἅλα πηκτόν)
in plenty or salt foam (ἁλὸς ἄχνην) which a salt worker (ἀνὴρ ἁλοπηγός) ever gathers as it
settles at the bottom when he mingles water with water.’ In addition to the only occurrence
of the term that indicates a salt worker in ancient Greek, the passage seems to allude to the
harvesting of salt in salt-works and to the feeding of salt-ponds.
22 See Castro Carrera 2006. The installation of Vigo is the only well-preserved and exten-
sively excavated case of ancient salt-works, clearly recognizable as such. Other possible
remains of ancient salt-works are discussed in Ménanteau and Villalobos 2006 : 93–7; Carusi
2008 : 46–7; Marzano 2013 : 126–9. A completely unparalleled structure brought to light in
Caunus (Turkey) in 2005 has also been interpreted as ancient salt-works by its excavators
(Atik 2008 ). The preliminary publication records a total of 48 circular salt pans located in
a rectangular area and divided into three full parcels of 12 pans each at the center and two
half parcels of 6 pans each at the short ends of the rectangle. Each parcel is separated from
the other by long rectangular canals (see also Marzano 2013 : 126–8). Since Caunus was in all
probability an important center of salt production in antiquity (Carusi 2008 : 85, 237–9) and
the excavated site is ideally placed for the production of sea salt, the interpretation proposed
by the excavators seems plausible. On the other hand, however, the structure has no parallel
with other ancient or modern known salt-works, and the lack of any connection between