In the later
Western Roman Empire, following the reorganization of
Diocletian, a pagus (compare French
pays) became the smallest administrative district of a
province. Previously it had been an informal designation for a rural district, as flexible in regard to its imprecise borders as the cultural horizons of those folk whose lives were circumscribed by their locality: agricultural workers, peasants, slaves. Within the reduced area of Diocletian's subdivided provinces, the pagi could have several kinds of focal centers. Some were administered from a city, possibly the seat of a bishop; other pagi were administered from a rural center called a
vicus that might be no more than a cluster of houses and an informal market; yet other pagi in the areas of the great agricultural estates (
latifundia) were administered through the
villa at the center.
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