Throughout history and the evolution of civilizations, there are always times of both crisis and prosperity. In order to establish the necessary components of a civilization, there has to be some type of disagreement, or there will be groups of people that are unhappy. As well as these inside factors, there are also outside components that can’t be controlled, such as disease or attack. These times of trouble are important to a civilization because they can lead to eventual prosperity and happiness, or they can destroy it. The patrician/ plebian roles during the Roman Republic is an excellent example of how civilizations can be damaged severely due to crisis and conflicts. The Roman Republic begun in 509 B.C. and was greatly influenced by …show more content…
The Patricians were of a higher class and only made up about 5 percent of the population. Typically, they were wealthy and dominated the government. The Plebians made up the other 95 percent of the population and were often very poor. There was high tension between these groups due to the extreme inequality and disagreements over governmental decisions. A major issue between these groups was debt slavery. Debt slavery occurred when a Plebian would fall into debt and worked as a slave of a Patrician in order to pay them back. It was a huge problem because, once a Plebian fell into debt slavery, it was extremely hard to get out of it. The Plebians chose to handle this issue as well as others by separating themselves from the Patricians. They took The Oath of the Sacred Mount which stated that the Plebians would not go back to Rome without a written law code. This lead to the creation of The Twelve Tables, a formally written, modified set of laws governing the Roman Republic. These laws made the father figure less powerful in the home, put less emphasis on class structure, but still allowed for debt slavery. The Patricians tried to resist this law code because it made them less powerful. Although there was still arguments against this law code, it still brought the Republic together after years of