Cultural Revolutions

Caius Plinius Secundus, known as "Pliny the Elder"(AD 23-79)attributed the decline of Roman agriculture to city-dwelling landlords with large tracts of land in the hands of overseers (Managers), growing cash crops for maximum profit, to the exclusion of diverse farming, predicting this would ruin the empire.
The empire only survived as long as it did through acquiring more land - eg. The Third Punic War (149-146 BC - Carthage was torched, the inhabitants slaughtered, and her fields put to work feeding Rome.
Romulus founded Rome in 750BC, dividing the new state into 2 acre parcels, so his followers could cultivate themselves - feed their family. Many prominent Roman family names derived from vegetables they excelled in. Cincinnatus was plowing his fields when summoned to become dictator in 458BC.
Early Roman farms had a multistory canopy of olives, grapes, cereals and fodder - called coltura promiscua, the central-Italian mixed cropping. Roots of each crop reached different depths so rather than competing, they raised the temperature of the soil, extending the growing period.