Thank You, Julius Caesar!

Now if you lived in a time period of Ancient civilization and you owed money to a creditor that you could not pay back, expect to be made a slave. You and your family.

This practice of debt slavery was very common until Julius Caesar.  Julius Caesar? What does he have to do with it?

Being constantly in debt himself for most of his life he wanted to give debtor's a second chance rather than years, (and I do mean years) of slavery that most debtors and their families faced.  Now his opposition to this was from the moneylenders who would quit lending him money if he ruled against them.  In order to get rid of his debt, he gave the moneylenders power to take noble lands in lieu of
 debt payments, while he, on the other hand, was ending the practice of selling delinquent debtors into slavery.

Very happy with their new collection powers, moneylenders were actually convinced on giving more concessions to debtors.  Their "fresh start" bankruptcy included by wiping the slate clean, and let them keep their tools of trade and their land.

Through the long history of debt relief, we can thank Caesar for the most basic principles intact.