supported by the general taxes and charged with the ordinary expenditure, there was a special reserve fund, also in the Temple of Saturn, the aerarium sanctum (or sanctius). This fund probably originally consisted of the spoils of war. Afterwards it was maintained chiefly by a five per cent tax on the value of all manumitted slaves. This fund was not to be touched except in cases of extreme necessity. This continued until 49 BC when Julius Caesar, after seizing the city of Rome during the civil war looted this special fund. Aerarium militare Besides creating the fiscus, Augustus also established in AD 6 a military treasury (aerarium militare) as a fund for veterans' retirement benefits. It was first endowed by 170 million sesterces of the emperor's own funds, supported by new taxes, a five per cent inheritance tax and a one per cent sales tax on auctions. Its administration was in the hands of three praefecti aerarii militaris. At first these were appointed by lot, but afterwards by the emperor, from ex-praetors, for three years. Tribuni aerarii The tribuni aerarii ("tribunes of the treasury") have been the subject of much discussion. They are supposed by some to be identical with the curatores tribuum, and to have been the officials who, under the Servian organization, levied the war-tax (tributum) in the tribes and the poll-tax on the aerarii. They also acted as paymasters of the equites and of the soldiers on service in each tribe. By the lex Aurelia (70 BC) the list of judices was composed, in addition to senators and equites, of tribuni aerarii. Whether these were the successors of the above, or a new order closely connected with the equites, or even the same as the latter, is uncertain. According to Theodor Mommsen, they were persons who possessed the equestrian census, but no public horse. They were removed from the list of judices by Julius Caesar, but replaced by Augustus. According to Madvig, the original tribuni aerarii were not officials at all, but private individuals of considerable means, quite distinct from the curatores tribuum, who undertook certain financial work connected with their own tribes. Then, as in the case of the equites, the term was subsequently extended to include all those who possessed the property qualification that would have entitled them to serve as tribuni aerarii. Publicum Prior to the decemvirate in 451 BC, there was a separate