They could not compete with large landowners who had slaves
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A Roman peasant farmer was called a colonus. Coloni worked on large Roman estates and could never leave. Coloni came from from impoverished small free farmers, partially emancipated slaves, and barbarians.
As Rome grew, many Rome's rich landowners lived on huge estates. Small farmers found it difficult to compete with the large estates. So a large number of them old their lands to wealthy landowners. They became poor and jobless. So if they limited the size of the roman estates, the small farmers wouldn't have to sell lands and become poor.
there are ruins of them in all roman cities
In the Later Roman Empire enemies who besieged Roman cities damaged the aqueducts which took water the the cities to disrupt or cut off the water supply.
Diocletian realized the Roman Empire was too large for one person to govern.