Secession of the Plebs  The Plebeians were the lower class citizens during the early Republic o

Secession of the Plebs  The Plebeians werethe lower class citizens during the early Republic of Rome. They were thefarmers, servants, and the generally poorer group of people living under theirricher counterparts, the Patricians. As the lower class, the plebeians were notallowed to have any say in any of the major decisions for the law of theRepublic. The only assembly that they had any voice in was the comitiacenturiata but even then their decisions had to be approved by severalpatricians. Also, none of the plebeians were allowed to hold political officeincluding being a part ofthe Senate, which was involved in many major law oredict making.Poor to beginwith, the plebeians were greatly affected by previous wars that often destroyedtheir homes and farms. Even if they were fighting in the war at the time, theRepublic did nothing to recover their losses. This extreme loss put manyplebeians in great economic need and eventually debt; the punishment for notpaying a debt back could result in arrest or enslavement by the creditor.Hatred and anger soon seized the plebeians for the patricians for their harshand unfair treatment. Because of this ever-growing tension, a long period ofabout 200 years of disputes of equality between classes began, referred to as“The Conflict of Orders.”Another war wason the horizon and the plebeians saw it as a perfect opportunity to gain somepolitical standing: they did absolutely nothing. They encouraged one another torefuse to sign up to fight in the war and let the patricians fight forthemselves, which was absolutely impossible since a majority of the army wasplebeian. The rebelling plebeians then withdrew or seceded to the hill of MonsSacer  (Sacred Mount) in B.C. 494 as anultimate form of revolt. Mons Sacer was only three miles away across the AnioRiver, but this act still troubled the patricians because they now had aninsufficient army and large body of angry peasants against them. The patricianswere put into a problematic situation and quickly began to search for asolution.High-rankingpatricians, men of the Senate, devised a plan to accommodate the distraughtplebeians and get their much-needed soldiers back. Menenius Agrippa, a plebeianhimself, was sent to Mons Sacer to reason with the plebeians and inform them ofthe Senate’s proposal. Many new powers would be given to the plebeians, themost important being a new office called tribunus plebis (tribune of thepeople) giving the poor class the ability to elect their own people to speakfor them to the consuls of the Republic and even the Senate; theses tribuneswere also given the power to veto items passed in the Senate. Besides creatingthe new office, the patricians cleared all debt that plebeians were unable topay and set any of them who were locked in dungeons or forced into slaveryfree. The comitia centuriata meetings that plebeians originally held were nowreestablished as an official assembly called the concilium plebis which couldbe called together by the new tribunes to discuss any concerns of theirs as wellas pass decrees pertaining to the plebeians order only.The “Conflict ofOrders” continued for many years and had several more secessions, but the mostprominent was the first one, which originally caught the attention of thepatricians, making them aware of their need to accommodate the lower class. TheSecession of the plebeians is one of the few examples of a (mostly) nonviolentresolution to a Roman problem. -- source link

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