Alongside of this urban organisation we have specially to mention that of the large landed estates in this province. According to Roman arrangement it fitted itself regularly into the communal constitution; even the extension of the _latifundia_ affected this relationship less injuriously than we should think, since these, as a rule, were not locally compact and were often distributed among several urban territories. But in Africa the large estates were not merely more numerous and more extensive than elsewhere, but these assumed also the compactness of urban territories; around the landlord’s house there was formed a settlement, which was not inferior to the small agricultural towns of the province, and, if its president and common councillors often did not venture and still oftener were not able to subject such a fellow-burgess to the full payment of the communal burdens falling upon him, the _de facto_ release of these estates from the communal bond of union became still further marked, when such a possession passed over into the hands of the emperor.[301] But this early occurred in Africa to a great extent; Nero in particular, lighted with his confiscations on the landowners, as is said, of half Africa, and what was once imperial was wont to remain so. The small lessees, to whom the domanial estate was farmed out, appear for the most part to have been brought from abroad, and these imperial _coloni_ may be reckoned in a certain measure as belonging to the Italian immigration. [Sidenote: Organisation of the Berber communities.]