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

98 Jesper Carlsen
important entrusted slave of wealthy Roman families, but, to my knowledge,
no regional survey including the private superintendents has hitherto
been attempted. The African provinces, with more than twenty
dispensatores attested, represent an excellent field for such an inquiry
that will be complementary to the reference books in some respects 4 •
This paper will therefore first discuss some regional peculiari ti es of the
African dispensatores, but it will concentrate on their functions, since
the often neglected inscriptions of dispensatores contain important information
on the relations between the groups involved in the administration
and management of the imperial possessions in Roman North
Africa.
One point of special interest is the age of the imperial dispensatoreso
Weaver assumed that these were normal1y manumitted about the age
of forty or soon after, but this is not corroborated by the African inscriptions
with age-declarations. Disregarding twoJJrivate dispensatores
aged respectively 46 and 79, only one imperial agent seems to have had
the proper age. The other inscriptions attest much higher ages than forty,
although a 110-year-old dispensator legionis III Augustae must surely
be an exaggeration.5. Yet the value of these scattered inscriptions can
only ben indicative. Successful dispensatores were promoted to seni or
clerical positions of tabularii and procuratores with the status as freedmen,
and the age-declarations of the so-caIIed vicarii of dispensatores
in fact support the tenabiIity of Weaver's observations. A vicarius could
be the personal slave of another slave, but the use of the term among
the imperial slaves is so closely associated with financial officials that
it must be regarded as a technical term for deputies of slave officials.
When a dispensator advanced, retired or was manumitted, the younger
vicarius normally replaced him, and the recorded ages of vicarii from
Roman North Africa (i.e. 26, 32 and 40) fit this supposed habit very
we11 6 •
4 CIL VIII 1028,3288,3289,3291,9755, 10572, 12892, 13341, 15594, 17051, 17335,
20589,21012,24687,27550 = AE 1899 no. 41, AE 1915 no. 20, AE 1932 no. 15, AE 1942/43
no. 60, AE 1957 no. 86, AE 1969170 no. 664, AE 1972 no. 717, AE 1980 no. 966 and
«Africa», X, 1988,209. Dispensarores also appear on the stamp of an opus doliare from
the imperial praedia Stato1liensia found in Carthage, but this estate was located in Italy:
CIL VIII 22632,6 = XV 541. The fragmented CIL VIII 17510 = ILA 469 must be excluded,
since the proposed disp in CIL rather should be read as disen.
s WEAVER (1972), 206 and 226, but see also BOULVERT (1974), ISO. Private: CIL VIII
15594, 20589. Imperial dispensatores: CIL VIII 1028, 3289 and 12892.
6 WEAVER (1972), 2()()"206, but see also the stili fundamental H. ERMAN Servus vicarills,
Lausanne 1896. CIL VIII 17335, AE 1942/43 no. 60 and AE 1969;70 no. 664.
Dispensatores in Roman Norrh Ajrica
Another point is recruitment. The majority of the African dispensatores
caH themselves vernae, a term normaIIy denoting home-born slaves.
Weaver has demonstrated that the term is also employed to indicate personal
slaves of imperial slaves and freedmen who died earIy, but in connection
with the African dispensatores verna seems to be used exclusively
for home-born slaves 7 • Relations of quasi-adoption, however, are attested
by three epitaphs put up by imperial dispensatores to commemorate alumni.
One was a five-year-old slave boy and the two others were adult womeno
One of the latter was al so a slave, but Aurelia Karica was apparcnt­
Iy an imperial freedwoman 8 • Other epitaphs reveal more regular nuclear
families as they attest both chiIdren of imperial dispensatores and coniugi,
the latter being slaves too or else freed women or pcrhaps even freeborn.
\Ve must assume that in some cases thc wife was manumitted before thc
husband who had his manumission delayed because of his post as
dispensator 9 • But the mixed marriages between slaves and freeborn women
also reflect the sodal mobility and position of thc dispensa/ores due
to the importance of their tasks in the imperial administration.
Tlle functions oJ tlle dispensatores
At least one, and perhaps even more, of the dispensatores in the African
provinces did not belong to thefamilia Caesaris. At Hammam Said
near the famous saltus Burunitanus the dispensator Datosus and his wife,
Paccia Iustina, raised an epitaph to commemorate their twenty-monthold
son:
D(is) M(anibus) S(acrum).1 C(aius) lulius Hilarus I pius vixit
annoi uno m(ensibus) VIII d(iebus) XXVII. I Datosus
disp(ensator) et I Paccia Iustina I parentesfilio I dulcissimo
fec(erunt)./ H(ic) s(itus) e(st).
7 African vcrnae: CIL VIII 3288, 3289, 12892, 15594,27550, AE 1915 no. 20, AE
1932 no. 15, AE 1957 no. 86 and «Africa» X, 1988, 209. WEAVER (1972), 207-211, and
in generai: H.S. NIELSEN, Diti'ì examen domus. On rhe Use oj the Term 'verna' in rhe Roman
Epigraphical and Literary Sources, «C&M» 42, 1991, 221-240.
8 C/L VIII 3288: D(is) M(anibus) S(acrum).! Aureliae Karicae 1 alumnae \'(ixit)
a(nnis) XXXII.! Adventus A ug (usti) 1 vern(a) disp(ensator)1 leg(ionis) /11 Aug(ustae). The
complete texts of elL VIII 24687 and «Africa», X, 1988, 209, are gi\'en in notes 9 and
13. For the term see BOULVERT (1974),325-328, H.S. NIELSEN, Alumnus: A Term Dj Relalion
Denoting Quasi-Adoption, «C&M», 38, 1987, 141-188, and M. CORDlER, Usages
publics du vocabulaire de la parenté: patronus et alumnus de la ciré dans l'Afrique romaine,
Africa Romana, 7, 1990, 815-854.
9 C/L VIII 10572, 12892, 17051, 17335 and 27550. See WEAVER (1972), 115-116 and
204-205, but also BOULVERT (1974), 300-328.
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