The ousiakos logos, the procurator usiacus, and ousiake ge: was it Vespasian, Domitian or Hadrian?

Abstract

Abstract This article challenges the consensus that the Flavians carried out major reforms of imperial properties by creating a separate department, the ousiakos logos, headed by a procurator usiacus, to manage these lands, and that this situation remained unchanged until Diocletian. The available evidence rather points to a reorganization under Hadrian, which was the culmination of a gradual institutionalization of ousiac land in the previous decades.