Massipianus Imperial Estate
About
This imperial estate spread across the forested highlands east of Thala, its boundary fixed by an inscribed stone separating Roman land from the territory of the Musulamii tribe. A freedman procurator running the property ordered its tenant farmers to repair buildings and raise new arches, work recorded on a stone found close to that same boundary marker. Unlike the olive estates of the Bagradas valley to the north, Massipianus lived on the Dorsal highlands' timber and pasture as much as its cropland.
What happened here
Land held in one ownership and worked as a unit, whether the owner is a senator, an emperor or a town. Day to day it is run by a manager who keeps the accounts, allots the tasks and answers for the shortfall. The workforce is mixed — slaves in gangs, tenant farmers on shares, and seasonal labour hired for the harvest and the vintage. Tenants owe a proportion of the crop and a fixed number of days' work, and the terms are posted publicly, which is how we know them. Buildings cluster: presses, granaries, a smithy, quarters, a shrine. Disputes over water and over how many days are owed go to the estate's own procurator first and to the emperor if that fails.
In ancient writing
- CIL, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VIII 587
Boundary inscription recording the saltus Massipianus under the imperial procurator.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →