As taxes increased and inflation made price controls unworkable, the urbanites of the cities started fleeing to empty plots of land where they could at least have a chance of living in self-sufficiency, where their lack of income spared them having to pay taxes. The intricate civilizational edifice of the Roman Empire and the large division of labor across Europe and the Mediterranean began to crumble, and its descendants became self-sufficient peasants scattered in isolation and would soon turn into serfs living under feudal lords.
