*Africa.* In Africa the transformation was effected differently. There, at the opening of the principate, outside of the municipal territories, the land fell into _ager publicus_, private estates of Roman senators and imperial domains. Under the early emperors, particularly Nero, the bulk of the private estates passed by legacy and confiscation into the control of the princeps, who also took over the administration of the public domain in so far as it was not absorbed in new municipal areas. This domain land was divided into large districts (_tractus_, _regiones_) which were directly administered by imperial procurators. Each district comprised a number of estates (_saltus_, _fundi_). Whatever slave labor had at one time been used in African agricultural operations was, by the early principate, largely displaced by free laborers, called _coloni_. These _coloni_ were either Italian immigrants or tributary native holders of the public land. The estates were usually managed as follows. The procurators leased them to tenant contractors (_conductores_), who retained a part of their lease holds under their own supervision, and sublet the remainder to tenant farmers (_coloni_). The relation of these _coloni_ to the contractors as well as to the owners of private estates or their bailiffs (_vilici_), was regulated by an edict of a certain Mancia, apparently a procurator under the Flavians. By this edict the _coloni_ were obliged to pay a definite proportion of their crop as rental, and in addition to render a certain number of days’ work, personally and with their teams, on the land of the person from whom they held their lease. The _coloni_ comprised both landless residents on the estates and small landholders from neighboring villages. They were encouraged to occupy vacant domain land and bring it under cultivation. Over plough land thus cultivated they obtained the right of occupation for life, but orchard land became an hereditary possession, while in both cases the occupant was required to pay rental in kind to the state. Hadrian also tried to further the development of peasant landholders by permitting the _coloni_ to occupy any lands not tilled by the middlemen, and giving them rights of possession over all types of land. However, the forced services still remained and these constituted the chief grievance of the _coloni_. And here the government was on the horns of a dilemma, for if the middlemen were restrained from undue exactions often large areas remained untilled, and if the _coloni_ were oppressed they absconded and left their holdings without tenants.