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

104 Jesper Carlsen
themselves and sublet the rest to coloni. The lease-holders collected the
rent in kind and other services from the tenants and had their own slave
overseers, who, according to the Henchir Mettich-inscription, were called
vilici on thefundus Magnae Varianae2 9 • In Roman North Africa, however,
vilici were in most cases responsible for the production on slaveestates,
whereas so-called actores drew up accounts of the estates and
supervised the collection of rent delivered by colom"3O. Literary sources
describing the situation in Italy during the early empire emphasize, on
the other hand, the urban aspect of the private and imperial dispensatores
and their authority over rurai overseers as the actores and vilici. It
is reasonable to appIy these accounts to Africa too, owing to the fact
that many of the African dispensatores were located not on the domains
themselves, but in towns with offices administrating the regiones and the
traetus. In other words, in their role as treasurers and cashiers the dispensatores
were not involved directly in estate management, but were
occupied with the administration of the rents paid in cash by the eonduetores.
In that respect the functions of the dispensatores regionis did
not differer from the other imperial dispensatores in North Africa, but
they demom:trate the importance of entrusted slaves at alI levels in the
administration of imperial possessions.
29 C/L VIII 25902. Among the huge literature see e.g. D. FLACH (l982) and D.P. KE·
HOE, The Economics of Agriculture on Roman Imperial Estales in North Africa, Gottingen
1988.
30 See J. CARLSEN (1991).