Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps (Plinio XVIII 6, 35): la terra e il rapporto tra élites (locali e immigrati) nel territorio di Cartagine romana

The article presents the results of the latest research in the territory of Roman Carthage, where peregrini and italici, benefiting from the benefits granted to the colony, coexisted; the senatorial latifundium progressively entered the patrimonium Caesaris: in the second half of the 1st century A.D. the epigraphic documentation testifies to the existence of a fundus Neronianus, perhaps attributable to Nero. Pliny’s news of the emperor’s cruelty and the vastness of the possessions of some senatorial families (among all that of the Sentii) enlightens us on the characteristics of agricultural exploitation in favor of italici immigrants or non-immigrants (a significant case is that of Teano Sidicino, who enjoyed an agricultural income from the large Fundus Tigibelle(nsis) near Thignica). We know the articulations of a territory that had no real continuity, but presented solutions of continuity in relation to the civitates external to the pertica of Carthage, the prefectures, the pagi of stipendiarii or Roman citizens, with the development of conflicts and a progressive transformation that we see it carefully reordered starting from Vespasian, with the strengthening of the central and peripheral tabularia. Social relations changed radically: Carthage lost the income deriving from its pertica, which was progressively dismantled with the birth of municipalities and colonies of Roman citizens.