Rome had a growing problem - the lack of fiat currency as the reserves of silver and gold were exhausted. They had to find alternates. They tried debasement(adding lead/zinc/copper( but that created the early quick tests.
Same now. We have so little gold that going to a gold backed method in circulation = gold would wise to $20,000 more or less per ounce at which point sea water extraction is economic. (currently it costs more to pump 1 ton of water over a 2 foot hill that the value of the gold therein)
Except they didn't use salt for that. That's a myth. Did you read the article?
> the lack of fiat currency as the reserves of silver and gold were exhausted.
True, they had the same problem in the middle ages. Since we know massively more about the middle ages than Ancient Rome AFAIK they partially solved it through a mix of barter and credit (accounting was done using currency bit might have never changed hands in reality). As long as most trade is local that must be a pretty effective system.
supplies, like salt, grain, etc were used because often there was not enough silver on hand = get salt etc - better than nothing and you can sell as you travel
Salt was very bulky (less so than grain of course) but I don't think it made a very good medium of exchange. Shipping goods on land especially was extremely expensive.
.e.g according to Diocletian's price edict (so the prices themselves are probably not accurate due to inflation by ratios might be) a laborer could afford to buy ~7kg of salt for his daily wage.
Salt was supposedly very cheap, actually the same price as grain by volume. So it really wouldn't have made much sense to drag bags of salts with you just to sell it for pennies (salted meats or fish etc. probably would've have been a much better option).
Hard to say. Money is preferred, but if you find there is no money and you have to go home, any valuable item will do. Salt varied in price as you got away from the southern sunny coastal areas. The edict you cite confirms the coinage problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_on_Maximum_Prices#:~:tex....
