Aerarium Saturni

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 7.1 §6 pay back into the treasury about a million sesterces

  Rather than pocket his unspent provincial allowance, Cicero returned roughly a million sesterces to the aerarium (the state treasury in the Temple of Saturn), a scrupulousness that annoyed his own staff, who expected the surplus distributed to them.

• Ad Atticum 7.12 §2 the locking of the treasury

  The aerarium, the state treasury kept in the Temple of Saturn; the consuls fled Rome leaving it (or its reserve fund) locked, but Cicero predicts this will not stop Caesar from helping himself.

• Ad Atticum 7.15 §3 the public money too, which is in the treasury

  The aerarium, the Roman state treasury, was housed in the temple of Saturn under quaestorian custody; the Pompeians' failure to secure it before evacuating Rome left its reserves to fall into Caesar's hands.

• Ad Atticum 7.21 §2 take money from the inner treasury

  The sanctius aerarium was the reserve fund kept in the temple of Saturn, drawn on only in extreme emergency (originally the 5 percent manumission tax); Pompey's flight left it behind, and Caesar later seized it on entering Rome.

• Ad Atticum 10.4 §8 he had given offence to the plebs themselves over the treasury

  On entering Rome in 49 BC Caesar broke open the Aerarium Saturni, the state treasury kept in the temple of Saturn, when the tribune Metellus tried to bar him. Even Caesar's own supporters found the seizure of the sacred reserve unpopular.

• On the Agrarian Law, Second Speech §47 break in upon the treasury

  The aerarium, the public treasury kept in the Temple of Saturn; the bill would let the decemvirs sell off the people's standing revenues (vectigalia) at will, draining it.