Peasant Problems In Roman Empire

Ancient Roman was based on agriculture, whose inhabitants weremostly peasants. In Roman history, peasants took great roles in thedevelopment of Roman, who were main cultivators in agriculture andmain payers of Roman revenues. Moreover, most soldiers came frompeasants. It was very important for Roman government and its nobles totake proper measures to treat these multitude people, which was critical toRoman survival and advance. But, the policies of unfair land distributionand heavy burden, which Roman government took, greatly aggravatedthe land concentration, villa's development and smallholders' losinglands and so on, which caused peasants increasingly lose lands, be moreburdened and poorer. With the decline of Roman slavery, thestrengthening of Principate, the expansion of bureaucracy and theaggravation of military burden, peasant problems further developed andworsened, which resulted in the agriculture withering, cities declining andcrises deepening. The two forces - army and bureaucratic institutionsdidn't exist any longer because of the lacking of revenue support. RomanEmpire became to collapse in its own system firstly. Furthermore, whenthe barbarians intruded Roman in later empire, it was inevitable for thecollapse of Roman because of the beating from home and abroad.The whole thesis is divided into three parts, namely preface, bodyand conclusion.The preface chiefly introduces the achievements about theagriculture and peasants in history area of home and abroad. It also pointsout the idea of this thesis, the new methods adopted by me and thepractical meanings of this paper.The body introduces four sections. Section One briefly introducesthe agriculture of Roman Empire, peasants and the arising of peasant problems. Section Two analyses Roman Empire's social conditions,which worsened the peasant problems in economy, politics and military.Section Three lays emphasis on peasant problems, which mainly involvein land, burden, status and poverty. Section Four analyses and summarizethe influences of peasant problems on agriculture, cities and Empireitself.The conclusion points out the relationship of the Empire's collapseand what lessons we should learn from it.