imperial estates

Reached their greatest extent, and epigraphic evidence from the second century, especially the Lex Manciana, reveals a good deal about their scale and management. But every province had them; they included mines, quarries, forests, as well as agricultural land; and Emperors were not slow to add to them. Septimius Severus, in particular, vastly increased the imperial holdings in the provinces, and the substitution of imperial for private markings on oil-jars from southern Spain eloquently reveals how sudden, complete, and economically important such a step could be. The inhabitants of these estates, through the hierarchy of procurators and bailiffs which separated them from the Emperor, had very much the same opportunities-or lack of them-for appeal and petition as ordinary provincials did through the governor. (Boardman, 1986)