Secessions of the Plebeians: The Legacy of an Ancient Roman Class Struggle
A depiction of the secessions of the plebeians, engraved by B. Barloccini in 1849 and titled “Secession of the People to the Mons Sacer.” (Source)
March 14, 2025 ~ By Brooke Pland
Over the course of 200 years, the working class of ancient Rome organized with unprecedented force and creativity against the patrician ruling class in what became known as the secessions of the plebeians. Their tool of choice – mass exodus of the city – marked the first recorded general strike in history.
Perhaps one of the most notable chapters of ancient Roman history is the Conflict of the Orders, a period of class struggle which lasted over two centuries, from roughly 495 to 287 BCE. Also referred to as the secessions of the plebeians – secessio plebis in Latin – the series of five mass protests and general strikes over two hundred years is remarkable for its successful organization, mobilization, and revolution of working-class people against the elite to demand both more social rights and governmental representation.
A Divided Society of Patricians and Plebeians in Ancient Rome
From its origins, the fabric of ancient Roman society was made up of two classes: patricians and plebeians. Patricians, the elite ruling class, held complete executive and legislative power, as well as the vast majority of the Roman Empire’s wealth. They typically did not work, as their status and wealth were passed down generationally. Meanwhile, the working class, called plebeians, consisted of the farmers and artisans of the Republic. They labored for meager incomes and held no representation in government. The two groups were forbidden from intermarrying, and plebeians were left with no possibility of upward mobility.
Ancient Roman apartment buildings, called insulae, where plebeians lived together. (Source)
Before the secessions of the plebeians took place, plebeians in ancient Rome lived under extreme oppression at the hands of the patricians. Each time Rome faced war with neighboring tribes, the plebeians, not the patricians, were required to enlist and fight in the army. What’s more, the plebeians – the poorer of the two classes – were forced to live on the outskirts of the city, leaving their homes and property vulnerable to enemy pillaging during wartime.
When intense Roman taxation inevitably exceeded the plebeians’ means of income, debts incurred outrageous interest, and the inequalities between patricians and plebeians reached a breaking point.
Infographic explaining ancient Roman social order from World History Encyclopedia. (Source)
A plebeian’s inability to repay his patrician debtors resulted in jail time, torture, and the seizure of property. Despite their service to the Republic, soldiers would often return from war to massive debts which had unfairly accrued in their absence. Left with no resources or representation, plebeians in ancient Rome would be forced to undergo unreasonable punishment for the crime of being poor.
The First Plebeian Secession Becomes the First General Strike in History
In approximately 495 BCE, one such plebeian became the catalyst for a working-class revolt. A former military leader who had returned from battle to find his home and belongings ravaged by the enemy Latins, he’d been imprisoned and tortured for his unpayable debts to the Republic. Naked and half-mad, he stormed the Roman assembly in a rage. The spectacle lit the spark for the plebeians of ancient Rome to unite in protest against the outrageous reality faced by half of Roman society.
A mass of plebeians soon marched out of the city, setting up camp on the nearby Mons Sacer, or the Sacred Mount. This marked the first secession of the plebeians.
Pierre-Nicolas Brisset’s “View of the Ponte Nomentano” (1837) shows the Mons Sacer, or the Sacred Mount, rising behind a bridge crossing the Aniene river. (Source)
The tactic deliberately left the patricians to fend for themselves: Without any of the workers who upheld Roman society, the patricians could not conduct their normal lives. As a result of the secessio plebis, they began to take the plebeians’ demands seriously. Soon, the patricians sent representatives to the plebeian camp to begin negotiations.
The groups compromised to create the concilium plebis and tribuni plebis – the plebeian council and tribunes of the plebs. This granted the plebeians a place in government via five of their own magistrates granted full political power. This victory eased class conflict for the time being and became an important first step on the course to social progress. In fact, scholars today consider the tribunes that resulted from the first secession of the plebeians to be “an immensely significant constitutional institution.”
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The plebeians’ clever tactic of mass withdrawal from the city introduced the concept of a general strike, or the halting of labor by a significant population of workers across numerous industries or trades. Theirs marked the first recorded general strike in history.
Plebeians in Ancient Rome Revolt a Second Time
Nearly 50 years later in 450 BCE, notoriously cruel patrician ruler Claudius Appius deliberately reversed the progress the plebeians had fought for by reinstating debts and penalties, as well as suspending the tribunes’ right to participate in government. Once again, struggles between the patricians and plebeians mounted as the plebeians were left with no rights and no representation.
The creation of the Law of the Twelve Tables, made possible through the tribune of the plebs in 451 BCE. (Source)
Not long after, in an egregious and lustful abuse of power, Appius ordered that a fellow patrician take a plebeian woman captive on his behalf. The woman was killed in the chaos, and her father, an army official, led another mass exodus from the city. This protest initiated the second secessio plebis.
Atop Mons Sacer once again, the plebeians elected new tribunes and organized their demands. With the help of two powerful and patricians empathetic to their cause, the plebeian council was restored in Rome in 449 BCE, as was the right to appeal in legislative and elective matters.
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The Plebeian Fight Continues
Continual struggle against the patricians resulted in three more plebeian secessions and general strikes over the next 165 years. While none of the last three secessions of the plebeians were as major as the first two, they marked important victories for working class social progress in ancient Rome nonetheless.
In approximately 445 BCE, five years after the second secessio plebis, the third plebeian secession began in an effort to secure further representation in government. The tribunes of the plebs pushed for more legislative and executive power, this time at the consular level, demanding the right to hold the highest electoral position in Rome. While the request wasn’t granted for another several decades, the Republic would see a dual-consulship of one patrician and one plebeian consul by the 360s BCE.
Bust of a Roman patrician from Otricoli, c. 75-50 BCE. (Source)
While scholars don’t know much about the fourth secession, which was believed to have been a small military revolt, a fifth and final secession brought the Conflict of the Orders to a close. In order to protest exclusion from receiving land gained in Roman military victories and persisting veteran debts, plebeians in ancient Rome abandoned their city and engaged in a general strike once more. The strike resulted in the approval of lex Hortensia, a monumental law which decreed that plebeian legal resolutions were binding law over the entire Roman population, finally granting the plebeians full and equal participation in Roman government in 287 BCE.
The Legacy of the Secessions of the Plebeians
The plebeians’ tenacity, cleverness, and belief in the power to organize moved their entire social class from a complete absence of economic and legislative power to equal representation and executive power in government. The secessions of the plebeians also set a powerful precedent for the tactic of a general strike in the pursuit of working-class rights. Equally astounding is the plebeians’ use of only nonviolent methods in their protest, an unusual occurrence amongst the civilizations of antiquity.
The victories of secessio plebis dramatically shaped the social contracts between patricians and plebeians, the future of the Roman Empire, and subsequent societies which looked to it for its precedents in law, government, and philosophy – precedents which benefitted members of all classes alike. Though more than 2,000 years have passed since the plebeians marched out of Rome, their efforts in organizing for better representation, fairer treatment, and more rights for all working-class people still speak to the power of nonviolent protest throughout history.
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