Imperial estates in late Roman southern Italy: land concentration and rent distribution, in A. M....

BEYOND VAGNARINew themes in the Study of Roman South Italy

Proceedings of a conference held in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology,

University of Edinburgh, 26-28 October 2012

edited by Alastair M. Small

Bari 2014

38

o f f p r i n t

beyond vagnari. new themes in the Study of Roman South Italy - ISbn 978-88-7228-726-2 - © 2014 edipuglia s.r.l. - www.edipuglia.it

DOMenicO VeRA

iMPeRiAL eSTATeS in LATe ROMAn SOUTHeRn iTALY:LAnD cOncenTRATiOn AnD RenT DiSTRiBUTiOn

The cult of the goddess “Synthesis” is not widespread around the Mediterranean,

as we all know. But speakers’ tight time constraints on this occasion force me to

sacrifice part of my paper on the altar of this Atlantic goddess, much revered north

of Hadrian’s Wall. My presentation will be brief and somewhat skeletal. First, i will

review some economic and social aspects of the late Roman imperial res privata.

Second, i will examine those same aspects in the province of Apulia et Calabria.

Finally, i will propose a hypothetical interpretation for the development of the Vagnari

settlement and its surroundings in Late Antiquity.

i

The field of study of imperial property has been ploughed intensively, and it is

unnecessary to review well-known topics. i would just recall that in the Later Roman

empire the res privata, having absorbed the previous administrative units of imperial

property, was an immense conglomerate of land of all kinds. 1 We can find it in

various measures in each province of the empire, as it emerged inorganically through

various processes of consolidation which lasted for centuries. i will just pick a few

figures from the extensive documentation, which capture the size of the phenomenon.

Did nero seize more than half of Africa’s land, as suggested by Pliny the elder? 2 This

is probably an exaggeration. instead, a constitution of the year 422 provides a reliable

aggregate figure. 3 At that time, out of 80,000 taxable millenae in Africa Proconsularis,

I am very grateful to my son Giuseppe and to my friend John Denton (University of Florence) forhaving helped me with the English translation of this contribution, and to Alastair Small (University ofEdimburgh) who has kindly checked the final draft.

1 See, e.g., F. Millar, The ‘Privata’ from Diocletian to Theodosius: documentary evidence, in ImperialRevenue, Expenditure and Monetary Policy in the Fourth Century, BAR int. ser. 76, Oxford 1980, 125-140; R. Delmaire, Largesses sacrées et “res privata”. L’aerarium impérial et son administration du IVe

au VIe siècle, Roma 1989.2 N.H. 18.353 C.Th. 11.28.13.


14,702 were imperial. Out of 100,000 millenae in Byzacena, 15,075 were imperial.

Therefore 18.5% and 15% of the richest western provinces, and an even bigger share

of their arable land were in the emperor’s hands. 4

Africa is an extreme case. elsewhere in the West, the res privata was probably less

extensive and scattered among provinces and single territories. in the east, except for

internal regions like cappadocia and Bithynia, imperial property appears less

common but still huge. 5 cyrrus, a Syrian city, paid 62,000 fiscal iuga, 10,000 or 15%

of which were imperial, just as in Byzacena. 6 Yet the statistical value of this

correspondence might be distorted by the fact that cyrrus was the home-town of the

wealthy Avidius cassius, whose property had been expropriated when he was

executed by Marcus Aurelius. 7 instead there is no reason to doubt the general validity

of information from candidus isauricus, who under Zeno wrote a contemporary

history reported in fragments by the patriarch Photius. 8 now candidus, as the well-

informed Johannes Lydus 9 confirms, reports that the failed re-conquest of Africa

(April 467) cost the emperor Leo i 47,000 pounds of gold provided by the praetorian

prefects, 17,000 more pounds of gold funded from the sacrae largitiones, and 700,000

pounds of silver funded from the res privata. Applying a conservative 1:18 ratio

between gold and silver, the total is ca. 39,000 pounds of gold. This implies that the

res privata financed more than 1/3 of the expedition. 10 But its true contribution was

probably even higher, because the sacrae largitiones included gold revenues of

imperial land.

The enormous incomes of the res privata which i have just mentioned fit well

with the patrimonial concept of the Late Roman empire. 11 Just as for a private citizen,

a primary source of the Prince’s wealth was the substantial share of income he

received from land. However, the claim that imperial wealth came from collective

expropriation would be imprecise if we didn’t add that, as always in the empire, the

input of agricultural goods into state property was accompanied by complex

redistribution mechanisms, which returned a substantial part of land income to various

social groups. Like a reservoir, Roman imperial property sucked in water from the

4 i follow A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602, Oxford 1964, 416, and c. Lepelley,Aspects de l’Afrique romaine: les cités, la vie rurale, le christianisme, Bari 2001, 217-231; contra F. DeRomanis, Per una storia del tributo granario africano all’annona della Roma imperiale, in B. Marin -c. Virlouvet (eds), Nourrir les cités de Méditerranée. Antiquité-Temps modernes, Paris 2003, 709-718,refers the figures to the whole surface of the two provincies.

5 M. Kaplan, Les proprietés de la couronne et de l’église dans l’empire byzantin (Ve-VIe siècles), Paris1976.

6 Theodor. Ep. 42; 47.7 H.A. Ant. Phil. 25; Av. Cass.7.8 Fr. 2, FHG 4.137.9 Mag. 3.43.10 S. cosentino, Fine della fiscalità, fine dello stato romano?, in P. Delogu - S. Gasparri (eds), Le

trasformazioni del V secolo. L’Italia, i barbari e l’Occidente romano, Turnhout 2010, 17-35 at 21-24.11 i. Tantillo, “Come un bene ereditario”. Costantino e la retorica dell’impero-patrimonio, AnTard,

6 (1989), 251-264.

DOMenicO VeRA286


basin of the empire and pumped back out much of it, both directly through land

management and indirectly through state expenditure, which was funded in good part

by the income from the Augustus’ land. if crises arose, imperial properties could be

sold, as the emperor Valens did on the eve of the disaster of Adrianople, according to

the 6th century chronicler Hesychius: “the emperor Valens sold off nearly all the

imperial estates when he was sorely strapped for money because of the barbarians.

Whoever was able to buy became the owner of these for a very low price...”. 12

This structural feature of the res privata has not been completely ignored by

research, 13 but it has often been overlooked.

in the next part of this short paper i will focus on some social consequences of the

administration of the res privata starting from B. H. Slicher Van Bath’s observation

that in pre-modern agricultural societies “land ownership and wealth did not always

coincide”. 14 Put differently, in order to reach a correct historical evaluation,

understanding the distribution of land income matters no less – and maybe more –

than determining the distribution of property. The prevalent management methods of

the res privata fully support this theory. Huge extension, extreme fragmentation and

diversification of imperial property, together with the continuous input and output of

agricultural goods, discouraged direct management: “the res privata seems very rarely

to have attempted to manage its lands directly”. 15 in a nutshell, the majority of the

imperial patrimonium was managed indirectly, with typically managerial,

administrative, and financial methods. Short leases were still practised but, unlike in

the mid-empire, they were no longer the main arrangement. When it was not donated

by the emperors to favour their clients, or sold for cash (as the emperor Valens did),

or expropriated, the majority of imperial land was de facto privatized using one of

three concession models: perpetual emphyteusis, ius perpetuum, and ius privatum

salvo canone. These were juridically different but all involved the payment of fixed

charges, mainly in gold. 16

Despite different rules, these models were tantamount to disposals, which gave

the grantees perpetual rights and, in the case of ius privatum, full dominium.

Accordingly the constitutions refer to the grantees as possessores or domini

interchangeably. 17 By systematically applying these models, the res privata went

beyond the complexity and inefficiency associated with the traditional Roman five-

iMPeRiAL eSTATeS in LATe ROMAn SOUTHeRn iTALY: LAnD cOncenTRATiOn AnD RenT DiSTRiBUTiOn 287

12 Fr. 6 (FHG 4,155); cf. C.I. 11,62,5 (377); 10,2,1 (378). See n. Lensky, Failure of Empire: Valensand the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D., Berkeley 2002, 305-307.

13 e.g. D. crawford, Imperial Estates, in M. i. Finley, Studies in Roman Property, cambridge 1970,35-70 at 40-44.

14 Storia agraria dell’Europa occidentale (500-1850), tr. it., Torino 1972, 430.15 Jones, LRE, 417.16 See F. Bourdeau, Le ius perpetuum et le régime fiscal des res privatae et des fonds patrimoniaux,

iura, 23 (1972), 1-25; idem, L’administration des fonds patrimoniaux et emphytéotiques au Bas-Empire,RiDA, 20 (1973), 285-310.

17 C.Th. 5.12.3; Nov. Theod. 5.1.


year locatio-conductio in earlier centuries, which generally involved payment of large

rents in cash and in kind by the great tenants (conductores). Another factor

contributing to the abandonment of monetary short leases was probably 3rd century

inflation. in exchange for a lower profit the state ensured a stable and predictable

stream of gold revenues ( certum vectical annuum or certus canon, as constitutions

of 364 and 444 declare) 18 and this revenue supported by relevant fiscal and liturgical

exemptions represented a fundamental entry in public accounts: “We very frequently

assign to public needs the income of the patrimony of Our Piety”, remarked the

emperor Valentinian iii in 431 and the emperor Justinian repeated in 529. 19 This

strategy relied crucially on fixed initial charges and on perpetual grants, which expired

only in case of non-compliance. 20

As one could imagine, a snapshot of the redistributive processes of state property

would have in the front line social classes whose supremacy was based on land

ownership: senators, military and bureaucratic élites, provincial moguls and, after

constantine, also the christian church. 21 not only could these groups lobby

effectively to obtain state land, which they would basically own, but they were also

preferred by the res privata, because they could occupy large plots of land and could

be forced to pay the associated dues, taxes and fees, from their personal incomes. 22

Therefore imperial property, which originated from consolidation of state land,

helped to increase concentration of private land, further enriching the land-owning

classes. But in my view it is important to stress the fact that this coexisted with

distribution models that worked in an opposite way, making large shares of imperial

land available to lower social classes and mitigating the inequality resulting from

concentration. These redistribution policies were in part deliberate and in part

necessary, given the composition of imperial lands. They often consisted of small-size

estates and of a myriad of small, scattered plots unappealing to large landowners. i

will mention only a few examples: imperial estates divided and distributed to many

owners in Africa in 321 (plures fundum patrimonialem possidentes) 23 and in Sardinia

in 325 (per diversos nunc dominos distributis); 24 in 342 eastern decurions who owned

less than 25 private iugera and more than 25 iugera of imperial land; 25 in 319 African

coloni allowed by constantine to remain on the fields belonging to emphyteutic leases

they had illegally occupied; 26 in 425 peasant communities in egypt to whom lands

18 C. Th. 15.15.5 (364); Nov. Theod. 26.4 (444).19 C.Th. 11.1.36 = C.I. 11.75.5.20 C.Th. 5.3.14 = C.I. 11.66.2; 5.15.16 (364) and 18 (368 Seeck).21 See most recently P. Brown, Through the eye of a needle: wealth, the fall of Rome, and the making

of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD, Princeton 2012, 31-52.22 C.Th. 5.13.4 = C.I. 11.66.2.23 C.Th. 11.19.1.24 C.Th. 2.25.1.25 C.Th. 12,1,33.26 C.I. 11.68.1.

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were “sold” (i.e. distributed) under Theodosius ii (...plures ex simili origine vel iure

venientes in supra dicta emptione socientur). 27

ii

now let us go to Apulia et Calabria. This region in Late Antiquity has been

extensively studied, including by scholars present here today. Research suggests that

the res privata, beginning with Augustus and enhanced in the following centuries

must have been very extensive in Apulia, which had always been a favourite area for

senatorial property and therefore for the confiscations and legacies funnelled into the

imperial patrimonium. 28 As a first sign, there were great imperial villas (praetoria in

the terminology of the Late empire) named after senatorial families of the 1st - 2nd

centuries, like the praetorium Laverianum between Aecae and carpi, 29 and the

praetorium Publilianum 30 in the vicinity of Teanum Apulum. But definitive proof of

the extraordinary extension of Apulia’s res privata is to be found in the western

sections of the Notitia Dignitatum, which strangely names only seven procuratores

of the res privata. Possibly, as A.H.M. Jones conjectured, 31 the Notitia only lists

holders of the highest rank, the viri perfectissimi. The list includes only two provinces

in the whole of italy: Sicily, ancient area of senate and imperial property 32 to which

the Notitia attributes an ex-procurator perhaps promoted to the rank of diocesan

rationalis, 33 and Apulia et Calabria, in which the res privata was represented by the

procurator rei privatae per Apuliam et Calabriam sive saltus Carminianensis. 34

The spin-off under Odoacer or Theoderic of parts of the res privata in the royal

patrimonium represented a great administrative innovation. 35 Yet from a management

point of view everything in southern italy and Apulia carried on as before, given that

patrimonium land was granted with mainly emphyteutic leases to big and locally

influential landholders. 36

Discussing the saltus Carminianensis, which has been studied in every respect by

27 C.I. 11.68.6.28 M. chelotti, Per una storia delle proprietà imperiali in Apulia, in M. Pani (ed.), Epigrafia e

Territorio, iii, Bari 1994, 17-35; La proprietà imperiale nella Apulia et Calabria, in Proprietà imperialinell’Italia romana, 169-196. See now M. Maiuro, Res Caesaris. Ricerche sulla proprietà imperiale nelPrincipato, Bari 2012, 284-295.

29 Tab. Peut. 6.3.30 A. Russi, Teanum Apulum. Le iscrizioni e la storia del municipio, Roma 1976, 104-108.31 LRE, 413; contra Delmaire, Largesses, 214, argues that in Sicily a procurator and a rationalis

coexisted, with different functions. 32 e. caliri, Il patrimonio imperiale in Sicilia, in c. Micciché - S. Modeo - L. Santagati (eds), La

Sicilia tra repubblica e Alto Impero, caltanissetta 2006, 23-73.33 N.D.Oc. 12.10.17.34 N.D.Oc. 12.18.35 e. caliri, Il primo comes patrimonii in Occidente e le norme scriniocratiche romane, Koinonia, 30-

31 (2006-2007), 241-259.36 Gel. Ep. 3; cass. Var. 1.2; 1.16; cf. C.Th. 11.16.9 (359) and 12 (380).



Giulio Volpe, 37 makes me feel like a poacher violating a game reserve. So, i will try

to sneakily place a few traps. This is the key point. After the procurator cashed in the

annual charges due to the res privata, who received income from this estate, which

was so widespread that it must have influenced the entire economy of Daunia? We are

not sure. However, considering the usual practice of the management of the res

privata as well as the possible fragmentation of the enormous estate, i can answer with

confidence: there were a lot of them. So, who were the many beneficiaries of the

saltus Carminianensis and of the imperial property in Apulia et calabria?

Among the social classes, i would put senators first, who are indeed explicitly

mentioned in the 4th century legislation on italy’s res privata. 38 Apulia held the estates

of great late Roman senatorial dynasties. We know about the Aradii, 39 Symmachi, 40

Valerii billionaires, 41 and the Nicomachi. These last actually came from Apulia,

perhaps canusium, where they still owned land, and at least two family members had

governed the province. 42 is it likely that the powerful Nicomachi refrained from riding

the gravy train of the res privata in their own region? Unlikely. in this case, when

nicomachus Flavianus went to northern Apulia towards the end of the 4th century to

survey his res familiaris 43it must have included vast imperial lands by now absorbed

into the estate. Perhaps even parts of the saltus Carminianensis, or the estate of the

splendid Faragola villa in the Daunian Apennines. 44

Similar questions – which we can’t answer with certainty but we find worth asking

– arise about the very wealthy Apulian bishops of the 4th and 5th centuries, who

sponsored imperial-level building activity, like Sabinus bishop of canusium, or the

bishops of the rural diocese of San Giusto. Did it all come from generosity of the

locals or maybe also from the res privata? Barring new evidence, the question will

remain unanswered, yet if we think about the philanthropy of the christian

emperors, 45 we cannot help asking.

The local curial aristocracies are poorly documented, but are likely to have been

involved with the res privata, even though the law set limits here. We can infer this

from the controversy between foreign tenants of imperial flocks and Apulian town

councils for the use of the great imperial grazing lands. The councils included wealthy

37 San Giusto, la villa, le ecclesiae, Bari 1998, at 332-338; San Giusto e l’Apulia nel contestodell’Adriatico tardoantico, in F. Lenzi (ed.), L’Archeologia dell’Adriatico dalla Preistoria al Medioevo,Firenze 2003, 507-536.

38 C.Th. 5.15.15 (364).39 Symm. Ep. 7.126.40 Symm. Ep. 6.12.41 Vita Mel. (L) 10.1.42 PLRE i, Celsinus 6; Venustus 5.43 Symm. Ep. 2.34.44 G. Volpe et alii, La villa tardoantica di Faragola (Ascoli Satriano) alla luce delle recenti indagini

archeologiche, Atti Daunia, 28 (2008), 405-454.45 R. Finn, Almsgiving in the Later Roman Empire. Christian promotion and practice (313-450),

Oxford 2006.

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Jewish landowners involved in the wool business, therefore understandably interested

in tenders for pasture. 46

Down the social ladder and later in time, we come to Ostrogothic italy and

cassiodorus’ Variae, which offers a unique example (Var. 5.6-7). The year is between

523 and 526. One Thomas vir honestus, a title denoting “commercial and artisan

middle-class”, 47 had accumulated a huge debt with the patrimonium while he was

emphyteutic landowner in Apulia amounting to 10,000 solidi worth of rents in

arrears. in order to avoid the sequestration of Thomas’ property, his son-in-law

iohannes – arcarius, i.e. cashier of the praetorian prefecture – offers to pay the debt

in exchange for obtaining these emphyteutic lands. clearly, despite Thomas’

enormous default, the family did not want to lose the goose that laid the golden eggs

they had in Apulia and must have considered their own.

iii

That is a fascinating anecdote. not only does it show in corpore vivi the social

and economic consequences of the complicated machinery that Roman administrative

historians love to deal with. More importantly, it might suggest a way of explaining

the developments of imperial property in Vagnari and its surroundings during the

period between the mid 4th century and the invasion by Justinian’s army, which was

definitely a golden age for Apulia.

Between the mid 3rd and mid 4th century, the Vagnari site went through a phase of

decline, as shown definitely by the abandonment “at some time in the 3rd century” (A.

Small) of the nearby villa of San Felice, the probable headquarters of the local

imperial administration. From the mid 4th century and throughout the 5th, a prolonged

phase of expansion followed. Archaeologically, this period is characterized by

transformation, and all signs of this transformation point to demographic expansion,

an increase in settlements and agricultural lands. We cannot even exclude the setting

up of a massa fundorum, a conglomerate of fundi distinct productively and in the

census records, yet reporting to the same dominical administration, which is the

classic form of organization of the “latifondo tardoantico” in the Suburbicarian

diocese. 48 The production and marketing area of the kiln grow. The vicus expands

towards the southern part of the settlement, where two new buildings appear: a

smaller one hosts a smithy and the larger one, rather monumental, probably served as

a hostel. At the same time, the number of vici and farms in the surroundings and in

46 C.Th. 7.7.2 (365); 16.8.13 (397); 12.1.158 (398). cf. D. Vera, “Res pecuariae” imperiali e concilimunicipali nell’Apulia tardoantica, in Ancient History Matters (Studies J.E. Skydsgaard), Roma 2002,245-257.

47 S. cosentino, Il ceto dei viri onesti (hoi aidesimoi andres) nell’Italia tardoantica e bizantina,Bizantinistica, 1 (1999), 13-50.

48 D. Vera, Massa fundorum, MeFRA, 110 (1999), 991-1025.



the Basentello valley grows. The corn lands crowd out the pastures, and grain exports,

as we know, represented at this time the primary source of wealth for Apulian

owners. 49 Judging from the imports and from the burials, even peasants enjoyed a

decent standard of living. To sum up, the Vagnari microcosm reproduces trends active

in the entire Apulia et Calabria province.

To explain Vagnari’s development Alastair Small, in his excellent introduction to

the volume on the excavations, 50 does not rule out an exit of the saltus from imperial

property, which would have made the presence of an administrator in San Felice

unnecessary, but in his view a different interpretation is more plausible. considering

the explosion of agricultural settlements in northern Apulia’s imperial properties and

the fragmentation of productive units following the diffusion of the colonate;

considering also the state’s need for more corn for Rome after the foundation of

constantinople, which the Vandals’ conquest of Africa made more pressing, he argues

that it is unlikely that emperors had given up improving their possessions in central

Apulia.

i frankly find the first explanation outlined by Small more convincing. i would like

to spend my last few seconds to support this hypothesis, unfortunately with not at all

decisive arguments. During Late Antiquity, northern Apulia’s rural landscapes show

an impressive development of rural settlements, but the economic stimulus of the

imperial patrimonium is neither certain nor distinguishable. As for Rome’s supplies,

i will never stop insisting on the overlooked fact that, as far as grain was concerned,

in the 4th century Apulia was never “tax-free”, but certainly it was “annona-free”. in

other words, until the end of the fiscal corn supplies from Africa, the typical

destination of Apulian fiscal grains was not Rome’s public bakeries. it was probably

the north Adriatic ports of Altinum and Aquileia and the huge imperial army of

northern italy. 51 Only in the case of food shortages did Apulia contribute grain for the

Urbs. 52 in normal times, it was precisely access to the great markets of Rome that

produced the commonplace statement of Apuli et Calabri “affluent and loaded”,

idonei et peculiosi, repeated by cassiodorus. 53 When, after 455, Vagnari’s grain

started to supply the Roman annona again, 54 these fiscal transfers are unlikely to have

stimulated the local agriculture. Rome was by then heading towards urban decadence,

and its demand had markedly diminished. 55 On the other hand, the tax and trade

49 G. Volpe, Contadini, pastori e mercanti nell’Apulia tardoantica, Bari 1996, 257-270.50 A.M. Small, Vagnari. Il villaggio, l’artigianato, la proprietà imperiale. The village, the industries,

the imperial property, Bari 2011, 11-36, at 32.51 D. Vera, Gli horrea frumentari dell’Italia tardoantica:tipi, funzioni, personale, MeFRA, 120

(2008), 329-330.52 Symm. Ep. 9,39 and perhaps 6.12.5.53 cass. Var. 8.33.3 (...Calabri peculiosi aut Apuli idonei...).54 Sid. Ap. Ep. 1.10.2 of 468.55 F. Marazzi, L’ultima Roma antica, Roma - Bari 2000, 349-378.

DOMenicO VeRA292


theory revolving around the idea of taxation as an engine of the imperial economy

needs thorough revision, 56 as also A. Wilson’s recent revision of statistics on naval

wrecks during the empire suggests. 57 Finally, as we have seen, the main admi-

nistrative strategy of the res privata led to land privatization and rent distribution.

As usual, the technicalities are critical. All regimes of perpetual grants included the

rule that future increases in profitability do not increase initial fees. Therefore, each

improvement represented a net benefit for the grantee. A western law of the emperor

Valentinian i to his minister of the Privy Purse on ius perpetuum rules better than any

modern analysis explains how things worked with the lands of res privata: “Those

persons who are moved to ask for these estates on account of their advantage shall go

to the office of Your Devotion and indicate in their petitions the amount that they are

considering, and they shall be assured that each villa along with its equipment and the

legal status to which it is now obligated shall pass to the ownership of the new owner.

if he should add anything to such property by his expenditures, care, and skill, for any

increase in slaves and flocks he shall not sustain any increase of capitation tax or the

regular land tax, but such good fortune shall accrue for the owners alone and the heirs

of the owner”. 58

So, as a mere hypothesis, i would not rule out that Vagnari’s mini golden age in

Late Antiquity resulted from the overlap between the interest of public administration

and powerful private interests: in the 4th century the saltus leaves the res privata, and

the new de facto owners, a family of emphyteutic tenants or perpetuarii, exploit it

intensively through peasant farms rented to coloni and the labour of the peasants

living in the surrounding villages, getting rid of features of imperial management

deemed unnecessary, like the actor’s villa and the old pastures, to re-focus on more

profitable grain business.

56 L. De Ligt, Tax transfers in the Roman Empire, in L. De Blois - J. Rich (eds), The transformationof economic life under the Roman Empire, Amsterdam 2002, 48-66.

57 Developments in Mediterranean shipping and maritime trade from the Hellenistic period to AD1000, in D. Robinson - A. Wilson (eds), Maritime Archaeology and Ancient Trade in the Mediterranean,Oxford 2011, 33-59, at 33-39.

58 C.Th. 5,13,4 ad Florianum comitem rerum privatarum (368 Seeck) = C.I. 11.66.2, according to thetranslation of c. Pharr, The Theodosian Code, Princeton 1952, 112. For a French translation withcommentary, see P. Jaillette et alii, Codex Theodosianus. Le Code Théodosien, Turnhout 2009, 368-371; cf. C.I. 11.71.2.


Ulrike Roth, Beyond Vagnari: a small achieve-ment

Alastair M. Small, Introduction

Douwe Yntema, Romanization and south-eastItaly

Edward Herring, “The ties that bind”: ethnic-ity and social cohesion in Hellenistic CentralPuglia

Bice Peruzzi, The (d)evolution of grave good as-semblages in Peucetia in the 3rd century BCE

Saskia T. Roselaar, Economic developments andthe integration of southern Italy in the RomanRepublic

Alastair M. Small, From Silvium to Vagnari:sheep, wool and weaving on the saltus

Carola M. Small, Vagnari and the Basentello Sur-vey. A brief summary

Alastair M. Small, Tile stamps of privati from theBasentello valley field survey

Maureen Carroll, Vagnari 2012: New work in thevicus by the University of Sheffield

Alan Dalton, The excavation of the cistern atVagnari: an update

Liana Brent and Tracy Prowse, Grave goods,burial practices and patterns of distribution inthe Vagnari cemetery

Tracy Prowse, Chrystal Nause and MarissaLedger, Growing up and growing old on an im-perial estate: preliminary palaeopathologicalanalysis of skeletal remains from Vagnari

Myles McCallum and Hans vanderLeest, Re-search at San Felice: the villa on the imperialestate

Philip Kenrick, Domestic pottery at Vagnari: re-gional character and Adriatic connections

Alessandra De Stefano, The presence and cir-culation of lamps at Vagnari and in the valleyof the Basentello 143

Giacomo Disantarosa, Contextualizing the con-

text: amphorae from the site of Vagnari and fromthe Basentello valley

Myles McCallum and Adam Hyatt, A view ofVagnari from across the Basentello: initial re-sults from the BVARP survey, 2012

Maria Luisa Marchi, The landscape of Daunia:Ager Venusinus

Helena Fracchia, Rural agglomerations in theUpper Bradano Valley

Maurizio Gualtieri, The villa at Masseria Cic-cotti in the 3rd century AD

Helga Di Giuseppe, Imperial estates in inlandLucania

Edward Bispham and Susan Kane, The MiddleSangro Valley under the Empire: a productivelandscape?

Darian Marie Totten, Building regional con-nections in Late Antique southern Italy

Marcella Chelotti, The development of imperi-al properties in the Second Augustan Region fromthe 1st to the 3rd century AD

Marcella Chelotti and Alastair M. Small, AP-PENDIX. An updated location map of inscrip-tions relating to imperial slaves and freedmenin Regiones II and III

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Imperial estates in late Roman southern Italy: land concentration and rent distribution, in A. M....

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