The Dark Ages: Why People Leave Rome

Before oil was of value, Saudi Arabia had no value. They did not have Saudi Arabia, but who they have wanted Saudi Arabia back then before Saudi Arabia had oil. It was an amazing empire, an empire built on open trade and religious tolerance. By the middle of the Dark Ages, so what? Four, five, six hundred years later, the population of Rome drops to 10,000 people from a million to two million. When civilization is gone, and anarchy rules the world, trade disintegrates, specialization goes away, and people have to leave the cities and go back to farming.