Why Italian Cities Survived After Rome Fell - Ada Palmer

When the Roman Empire dissolved in the West, individual cities then needed to self-govern, and this is true all across your. And those individual cities could no longer get the centralized Roman government to oversee supply routes, keep the roads free of bandits, you had to support things yourself. So the larger, wealthier towns surrounded by good agricultural land were more successful at converting over to, okay, let's have a Senate like the old Roman Senate, let's have our top families form a council, they will rule will set up a republic.

当西罗马帝国解体后，各个城市需要自行管理，这种情况在各地都存在。这些城市无法再依赖罗马中央政府的监督来保障供给路线、维持道路畅通、对付强盗，因此必须自给自足。所以，那些被优质农业土地环绕的较大且富裕的城镇更成功地转型为新的治理方式，比如设立类似古罗马元老院的参议院，让城中的顶级家族组成议会进行统治，从而建立起共和国。

A weaker town is much more prone to one wealthy family realizes that they can get goons and take over and declare themselves the monarch of the area. Or worse, this town cannot self-sustained, it doesn't have enough, people there can't get food, they're afraid of being robbed by people who are desperate, but outside of town there is a wealthy villa that belongs to a noble family and they have bodyguards.

一个较弱的小镇更容易被某个富有的家族盯上，他们可能会雇佣打手并控制小镇，甚至自封为这个地区的统治者。更糟糕的是，这个小镇无法自给自足，资源不足，居民无法获得足够的食物，还害怕被绝望的人抢劫。而在小镇外，有一座属于贵族家族的豪华庄园，他们有护卫保护。

Hey noble family, if I move next to your villa and work for you, will you protect me with your bodyguards? So towns emptied out and villa giz as in villa and its environs developed. So Italy had great agriculture. The more of Italy's cities were able to sustain themselves as towns and be republics than in other regions.

尊贵的家族，如果我搬到你们别墅旁边，并为你们工作，你们会用你们的保镖来保护我吗？因此，随着乡镇人口减少，别墅以及其周边地区逐渐发展起来。意大利的农业非常发达，更多的意大利城市能够维持自己作为城镇并成为共和国，这在其他地区较为少见。