Salt Hill (Eton)

The mound at Eton where the Eton scholars used to collect money from the visitors on Montem day. The mound is still called Salt Hill, and the money given was called salt. The word salt is similar to the Latin salaʹrium (salary), the pay given to Roman soldiers and civil officers. (See Montem, Salary.)

⁂ Cakes of salt are still used for money in Abyssinia and Thibet.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.