Aerarium
(
τὸ δημόσιον). 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
quaestors. 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. (See
Fiscus.) 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 this, they diverted into
their own
fiscus all the larger revenues, even those that legally
belonged to the aerarium. (See
Fiscus.) 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 pensionfund founded by Augustus in A.D. 6, for disabled soldiers. Its
management was intrusted to three
praefecti aerarii militaris. It was
maintained out of the interest on a considerable fund, and the proceeds of the heritage and
sale duties. See Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, ii. pp. 293-305.