L'Africa romana - UnissResearch - Università degli Studi di Sassari

J esper Carlsen
Dispensatores in Roman North Africa
Dispensator and its Greek equivalent, «oikonomos», are well known
occupational titles among the members of thefamilia Caesaris. In Rome
alone the Latin term is recorded by almost 200 inscriptions, and the dispensatores
occupy a wide range of tasks in the financial administration.
We know, for instance, of dispensatores castrorum or flSci castrensis (C/L
VI 8516, 8517,33737), dispensatores ludi magni (C/L VI 10166), dispensatores
annonae or a frumento (C/L VI 544, 634, 8472), but also of dispensatores
hortorum (C/L VI 8667, 8675, AE 1977 no. 49) and dispensatores
rationis monetae (C/L VI 239, 8454)1.
The title is attested throughout almost the entire empire, and Hirschfeld's
fundamental work, «Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten»,
and more recently the studies by Chantraine, Weaver and the late Gérard
Boulvert have elucidated the nomenclature and the careers of the
dispensatores as well as their social conditions, including recruitment,
manumission, pattern of marriage and status in the well-established hicrarchy
of the imperial slaves and freedmen 2 • Dispensator is «an intermediate
clerical grade», who can be usually found in charge of the funds
of different rationes. The title, however, is not restricted to imperial slaves
alone, but is famBiar in private households too where the dispensator
managed the accounts and carri ed out the financial transactions. The
extensiveness of his functions is also indicated by the exact dcfinition given
by Gaius in the Institutiones: Servi quibus permittitur administratio
pecuniae, dispensatores appellati sunt 3 • The dispensator was, thus, an
1 The lists of dispensatores given by G. BLOCH, DA II (1892), 280-286, N. VULlC, Diz.
Epigr. II (1922), 1920-1923 and W. LIEBENAM, RE V (1903), 1189-1198, must be supplemented
with inscriptions recorded in AE.
2 O. HIRSCHFELD, Die kaiser/ichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian, Berlin
1905; H. CHANTRAINE, Freigelassene und Sklaven im Dienst der romischen Kaiser, Wiesbaden
1967; P.R.C. WEAVER, Familia Caesaris, Cambridge 1972; G. BOULVERT, Esclaves
et affranchis impériaux sous le Haut-Empire romain, Napoli 1970, and lo., Domestique
et fonctionnaire sous le Haut-Empire roma;n, Paris 1974.
3 GAIUS, Inst. 1.122. Another definition is given in Varo LL. V.183: Ab eodem aere
pendendo dispensator. In generai see 1.M. COELLO, Officium dispensatoris, «Geriom) 7,
1989, 107-119.