The Roman soldiers who guarded the Via Salaria route received part of their payment in salt. This part was called "salarium argentum" (added salt). That’s where the word "salary" comes from .
However, salt was not the first thing that was used to pay a salary or salary. The first thing was beer .
Brewery
About 5000 years ago, people who lived in the city of Uruk, in modern Iraq, wrote in a language called cuneiform, one of the oldest forms of written expression.
On a tablet excavated from the area we can see a human head eating from a bowl, which means "ration", and a conical container, which means "beer." Scattered around are scratches that record the amount of beer for a particular worker. It is the oldest known pay slip in the world, which implies that the concept of worker and employer was familiar five millennia ago .