Roman Government Essay

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Many times in history people challenged or still challenge their government for equal rights on its people. No one wants to have fewer rights than someone else for any reason being. Everyone wants to be treated equally with the same rights. That’s one of the reasons why governments have evolved remarkably over time. One of the early civilizations who challenged their government were the Romans. In 509 BCE the people of Rome created a new type of government: they called it the Roman Republic.
Although many things started to be different, and the government was improving, women and slaves were not considered citizens of Rome. “They had no voice in government. Only adult free Roman men were citizens.” The people got tired of this and challenged their government. By 451-449 BCE, Rome’s first codes of laws were created and called them the Twelve Tables. These sets of laws were created in order to protect the civil rights of the patricians and the plebeians. The plebeians requested laws that would be decoded fairly. “In 450 the code was formally posted, likely on bronze tablets, in the Roman Forum. The written recording of the law in the Twelve Tables enabled the plebeians both to become acquainted with the law and to protect themselves against patricians’ abuses of power.” Yet, the twelve tables are not the first known codes of laws in western civilization; there is much to know about them. Without them our system of government today might have been slightly different. To learn more about these laws, it is essential to understand and analyze its roots.
While many civilizations were falling and others rising, in 759 BCE, Rome was starting to form under a monarchy. The Romans hate toward monarch type of government mot...

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... and also protected Plebeians from being abuse by the Patricians. “The Twelve Tables prevented patrician judges from giving judgments in legal cases only according to their own wishes”. To keep the Roman Republic united, the Romans created these code of laws to avoid civil wars from ruining the republic.
The Twelve Tables were displayed in public for everyone to see. This was very important because being written down, the people could now know what the laws were and they could know what was legal and illegal. “The Tables themselves were pieces of stone with writing carved into them. The main benefit of having laws written down was that the lawmakers and law-enforcers couldn't change them to suit their whims.” This made a huge change in the Roman Republic, not only people could see what the laws were but also everyone was treated equally under those laws.

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