Rome was an empire that dominated the world from 509 B. In order for a civilization to last for so many years, it must go through some civil turmoil. Rome was plagued by two significant civil upheavals. One of them annotated The Struggle of the Orders, dealt with the lower class battling for political power with the upper class. The other was the civil wars that took place in the later stages of the Roman Republic.
From the early developments of the Roman Republic, people were sorted into different categories of citizens. At the lower portion of the social latter were the slaves. Above them were the plebeians, which consisted of artisans, small farmers, and landless urban land dwellers. At the top of the social latter were the Patricians. Patricians were wealthy aristocrats that dominated the political rule of Rome. Plebeians: who still paid taxes, enrolled into the army, and participated in every aspect of Roman life; were not getting the political representation that they felt they deserved. The political struggle between the plebeians and the patricians became known as The Struggle of the Orders. .
The plebeians realized that Rome's continuing survival needed the aid of the army. So to gain some leverage with the patricians, they seceded from the republic in 494 B.C.E. In other words, they walked out of Rome and refused to serve duty in the army. The patricians cracked under the pressure from the plebeians and gave certain laws in favor of them. One of these laws gave the right for a plebeian to marry a patrician. The strike also allowed the plebeians to elect their own tribunes to represent them in the senate. This later led to the creation of the concilium plebis in 471 B.C.E., an assembly of plebeians that passed ordinances. In 450 B.C.E., the plebeians took action to have the laws of Rome properly written down. They wanted the laws written down because only the patricians knew what the law was, and they could easily use the law to benefit them in court cases.