First Secession of the Plebs (494 BC) and the Tribunes

The First Secession of the Plebs, traditionally dated to 494 BC, was a mass walkout by the common citizens of Rome. Crushed by debt and angry at their treatment by the aristocratic patricians, plebeian soldiers left the city and camped on a hill outside it. They returned only when they were granted their own protectors, the tribunes of the plebs, an office that would shape Roman politics for centuries.

Background: patricians, plebeians and debt

After the founding of the Roman Republic, traditionally in 509 BC, power lay with the patricians, a closed group of aristocratic families who monopolised the consulship, the Senate and the priesthoods. Everyone else belonged to the plebs, a varied group that included poor farmers and labourers but also some wealthy families.

The early 5th century BC was a hard time for Rome. The city fought repeated wars against neighbouring peoples such as the Volsci, Aequi and Sabines, and the loss of Etruscan trade and royal building projects may have worsened poverty. Small farmers who served in the army could not tend their land and fell into debt.

Under an arrangement called nexum, a debtor could pledge his own labour as security. If he failed to repay, he could be held in chains and forced to work for his creditor. Livy describes an old centurion who rushed into the Forum showing his war wounds and the marks of beatings he had received as a debt-bondsman, an episode that stirred the crowd.

The crisis of 495–494 BC

According to Livy, the consuls of 495 BC were divided. Appius Claudius Sabinus insisted on enforcing debt law strictly, while his colleague Publius Servilius promised relief if the plebeians enlisted against the Volsci. When victory came and the promises were not kept, anger grew.

In 494 BC, with new wars threatening, the Senate appointed a dictator, Manius Valerius Maximus, who was seen as sympathetic to the people. The plebeians again served and won, but the Senate rejected Valerius’s proposals for debt relief and he resigned in protest.

The plebeian soldiers, still under military oath, then refused to return to the city. Led, according to Livy, by a man named Sicinius, they marched to the Mons Sacer, the Sacred Mount, a hill about three Roman miles (some 4–5 km) north-east of Rome beyond the river Anio. There they fortified a camp and waited, taking only what food they needed. Livy notes that another tradition, recorded by the annalist Piso, placed the secession on the Aventine Hill.

Menenius Agrippa and the fable of the belly

With the city stripped of much of its army and labour force, the patricians feared both foreign attack and civil war. The Senate sent Menenius Agrippa, a respected former consul of plebeian sympathies, as its envoy.

Livy says Menenius spoke to the plebeians in a simple, old-fashioned way and told them a fable. Once, the parts of the body grew angry that they worked while the belly sat idle and received everything. They agreed to starve it, but soon the whole body weakened, and the limbs realised that the belly nourished them all. The point was that patricians and plebeians depended on each other.

The fable, which has parallels in Greek literature, was later retold by Shakespeare at the opening of Coriolanus and became a familiar image of society as a single organism.

The agreement and the tribunes

The plebeians returned on terms. They would elect their own officials, the tribunes of the plebs (tribuni plebis), whose job was to bring help, known as auxilium, to any plebeian threatened by a magistrate. The tribunes were declared sacrosanct: the plebeians swore a sacred oath, the lex sacrata, that anyone who harmed a tribune could be killed without penalty.

Sources differ on the first number of tribunes. Livy says two were elected, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Albinus, who then chose three colleagues, including Sicinius; Dionysius of Halicarnassus says five. By about 457 BC the number had risen to ten. In time the tribunes gained the power of veto (intercessio) over the acts of magistrates and the Senate.

At about the same time, the plebeians developed their own institutions. A temple to Ceres, Liber and Libera on the Aventine, traditionally dedicated in 493 BC, became a plebeian religious centre, overseen by plebeian aediles. The plebeians also met in their own assembly, the concilium plebis, whose decisions, called plebiscites, at first bound only plebeians.

Key people

• Menenius Agrippa: consul in 503 BC and the Senate’s envoy to the seceders; according to Livy he died so poor that the plebeians paid for his funeral.
• Manius Valerius Maximus: dictator in 494 BC who resigned when the Senate rejected debt relief.
• Lucius Sicinius Bellutus: named as leader of the secession and among the first tribunes.
• Appius Claudius Sabinus: consul of 495 BC, remembered as the leading opponent of plebeian demands.

Consequences: the Conflict of the Orders

The secession began what historians call the Conflict of the Orders, a struggle lasting about two centuries in which the plebeians gradually won legal and political equality. Key steps included the written laws of the Twelve Tables in 451–450 BC, the right of intermarriage in 445 BC, and the Licinian-Sextian Laws of 367 BC, which opened the consulship to plebeians.

The plebeians used secession again. Tradition records a second walkout in 449 BC after the abuses of the decemvirs, and a final one to the Janiculum Hill around 287 BC, which ended with the Lex Hortensia making plebiscites binding on all Romans. Debt bondage was abolished by the Lex Poetelia Papiria, usually dated to 326 BC.

The office of tribune proved long-lasting and powerful. In the late Republic, tribunes such as Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus used it for radical reforms, and the emperors later took “tribunician power” as a basis of their own authority.

How reliable is the story?

The account comes mainly from Livy and Dionysius, writing more than 450 years later, and many details, such as speeches and names, are likely to be elaborations. Some historians suspect that later political conflicts were projected back onto the 5th century BC. Most, however, accept that the tribunate was created early in the Republic in response to plebeian protest, and that withdrawal of military service was the plebeians’ most powerful weapon.

The location is also debated. Livy’s Mons Sacer is usually identified with a low hill beside the Via Nomentana, near the ancient bridge over the Anio, in the modern Roman district still called Monte Sacro. The rival tradition of the Aventine may reflect that hill’s later role as a plebeian stronghold.

Timeline

• 509 BC: Traditional founding of the Republic under patrician control.
• 495 BC: Debt crisis and conflict between the consuls Appius Claudius and Publius Servilius.
• 494 BC: Manius Valerius serves as dictator; plebeian soldiers secede to the Mons Sacer.
• 494 BC: Agreement creates the tribunes of the plebs.
• 493 BC: Traditional dedication of the Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera on the Aventine.
• c. 457 BC: The number of tribunes is raised to ten.
• 449 BC: Second secession after the fall of the decemvirs.
• c. 287 BC: Last secession; the Lex Hortensia ends the Conflict of the Orders.

Why it matters

The First Secession showed that ordinary citizens could win rights through collective, largely peaceful refusal to cooperate. It created the tribunate, one of the most distinctive offices of Roman government, and is often cited as an early example of a general strike.