Imperial Officials and the Allocation of Responsibilities

Abstract

This chapter discusses the possible allocation of organizational responsibilities to specific personnel in charge of running quarries and mines. Given the varying organizational constraints and challenges procuratorial tasks could vary significantly. The procurators responsible for the quarries in the Eastern Egyptian Desert probably dealt with a wider range of adminuistrative issues ranging from the recruitement and pay of workers to the supply of the quarries with provisions and animals, thereby relying heavily on the provincial administration. At the metallum Vipascense, however, the procurator seems mainly to have enforced the mining regulations concerned with the occupants of mining plots. Procurators for various metalla in the Danube provinces probably faced a combination of responsibilities resulting predominantly from the collection of vectigalia from mines by proxy. Administrative continuity and expertise was provided by imperial slaves and freedmen present at the mines and quarries or at procuratorial ‘headquarters’.