During the third century AD, the combination of funding external wars and internal unrest caused rampant monetary inflation, wiping out the assets of the middle class. Moreover, the occasional efforts to return the empire to its former glory were centered more on rebuilding the army than funding public works projects in the cities, so the latter became degraded into a dilapidated condition. Civil service workers in the cities, once perceived as benefactors because of their wealth, were now pressed by the government to collect higher and higher taxes, which alienated them from the people they had previously governed, and caused them to lose interest in serving.
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