AERARIUM

The state-treasury of Rome, into which flowed the revenues ordinary and extraordinary, and out of which the needful expenses were defrayed. It was kept in the basement of the temple of Saturn, under the charge of the gumstors. A special reserve fund was the Aerarium sanctius, in which the proceeds of receipts from the manumission-tax (one twentieth of the freed slave's value) were deposited in gold ingots. When Augustus divided the provinces into senatorial and imperatorial, there were two chief treasuries. The senatorial treasury, which was still kept in the temple of Saturn, was left under the control of the senate, but only as a matter of formal right. Practically it passed into the hands of the emperors, who also brought the management of the treasuries under their own eye by appointing, instead of the quaestors, two praefecti aerarii taken from those who had served as praetors. Besides, they diverted into their own Fiscus all the larger revenues, even those that legally belonged to the Aerarium. When in course of time the returns from all the provinces flowed into the imperial treasury, the senatorial Aerarium continued to exist as the city treasury. The Aerarium militare was a pension-fund founded by Augustus in A.D. 6, for disabled soldiers. Its management was entrusted to three praeefecti aerarii militaris. It was maintained out of the interest on a considerable fund, and the proceeds of the heritage and sale duties.