Based on a listed account of a number of contradictions in the documentation concerned with (mostly imperial) warehouse staff in the Roman world, the present article wishes to emphasize the correspondence between staff categories and the management context of these warehouses in Rome and in the provinces, including activities such as the stewards’ (horrearii) leasing and management, the paymasters’ (vilici) direct management and some civil-servants’ administration (and more particularly the dispensatores) .