Notes on the Curatores Rei Publicae of Roman Africa
The creation of curatores rei publicae is a very important factor in the history of local government in the Roman Empire. For it cuts across the division of administration into the central and professional on the one hand and the local and amateur on the other. It brought an imperial official into the heart of that local governing body which presided over the affairs of its community, and gave to him the supervision of its property and financial arrangements. That this interference was caused not by a doctrinaire desire on the part of an emperor for the enlargement of the sphere of the central service, but by the needs of the communities themselves, is indicated by the varying times at which curatores appear in the various provinces. The first known curator in Africa belongs to A.D. 196—nearly a century after the office was initiated.