Although the right to strike wasn’t regulated until the 20th century, labor strikes occurred for various reasons since ancient times, with the first documented case being that of the workers of Set Maat (now Deir el-Medina, Egypt) during the reign of Ramesses III. We know this thanks to the so-called Strike Papyrus, preserved in Turin and supported by several ostraca scattered in various museums around the world. However, that was an improvised movement. To find the precedent of strikes as institutional figures, we would likely have to look to Republican Rome, to secessio plebis.

In the Egyptian case, we’re talking about the year 1166 BCE. It was a protest sent to the pharaoh about working conditions, with poorly fed and dressed workers, as well as an accusation of embezzlement. In the Roman reference, the date is a bit closer, from the 5th century BCE, but the secessio plebis fits a bit better into the concept of a strike from a legal point of view, although it wasn’t exactly that.

It was a class tool to defend against abuses. Something closer to a standoff during which the lower classes, who were the beneficiaries of that right, left the city, rendering it completely inoperative as they constituted the majority of the productive force. Thus, workshops stopped, shops closed, and consequently, commerce ceased to function, causing a shortage that directly harmed the higher echelons.

Deir el-Medina, the place where the first strike was recorded
Deir el-Medina, the place where the first strike was recorded. Credit: Steve F-E Cameron on Wikimedia Commons

We’re talking, of course, about plebeians and patricians respectively, the two social levels of the Roman Republic along with the slaves and foreigners without citizenship. The plebeians, the ordo plebeius (plebeian order, plebs), were those who didn’t have gens; that is, those who couldn’t trace their lineage back to the founding of Rome. Basically farmers and artisans, they had to work to eat; in that, they didn’t differ much from the patricians, who except for the richest, who lived off rents, also worked. But there were other aspects of their status that did mark distances.

Patricians descended from the illustrious families that formed the original thirty curiae founding Rome (in fact, patrician comes from pater, father), which is why they held all the rights of government and representation. They dominated the Senate and provided the two annual consuls required (who replaced the monarchical power), just as they monopolized access to the priesthood and, in short, all magistracies. Even marriage between members of both classes was prohibited.

Over time, things changed a bit and the cursus honorum was opened to the plebeians, although initially restricted to certain positions (quaestorship, tribunate of the plebs) until fully opened. But that would come later and as a result of conflict. Because, as expected, there was a situation of discontent susceptible to exploitation as soon as an economic crisis arrived in the absence of the former moderating power, the monarchical. And it came in 494 BCE.

Territorial expansion of Rome
Territorial expansion of Rome. Credit: Roma Antiga on Wikimedia Commons

The constant wars with neighboring peoples (Rome was not yet as powerful as it would become), which forced the fields to be abandoned for the duration of the campaigns, together with a succession of bad harvests, led to the general impoverishment of the ordo plebeius, forcing many of its members ruined to request loans that were not always repayable. In such cases, the fate of the defaulter was to end up paying with his freedom, turned into a slave, a double humiliation for a Roman.

Despite the threat posed by the Sabines, the plebeians refused to join the army unless the law that condemned them to poverty or slavery was changed. The patricians accepted the compromise, but once the danger of invasion was overcome, they did not fulfill their promise; the Senate refused any reform, causing the indignation of the others. The final spark was lit, as Livy tells us, in the Forum, in a spontaneous outburst of anger.

A gaunt army veteran told the crowd how while fighting the Sabines, they destroyed his farm, stealing everything he had. He was forced to borrow at usurious interest rates that prevented him from repaying, having to give his grandfather’s farm as payment and still not managing, so he suffered imprisonment and lashes. The people, enraged, began to roar at the consuls, and they asked the Senate to take appeasing measures. Two senators, Appius and Servilius, faced off: one demanding to suppress the protests, the other proposing to make some concession.

Volsci territory
Volsci territory. Credit: public domain on Wikimedia Commons

Then came news that the Aequi and Volsci, Italic peoples who inhabited the northeast and south of Latium, and who were considered ancestral enemies, had entered Latium. Servilius promised immunity for Roman citizens and guaranteed the safety of their property while they were in the ranks, releasing those condemned for debts. This calmed spirits, recruitment proceeded, and the Volsci were defeated, as were the Aurunci, who had also gone to war.

But, as we said, when they returned, all those promises dissolved. Servilius was denounced by both sides, and the arrests of debtors began again. One of them, carried out in the middle of the forum, incited the crowd, who forcibly released the accused. It was not surprising that when it was known that the Sabines were also trying to fish in troubled waters, no one enlisted. Appius sent the lictors to arrest the leader of that revolt but they did not succeed, and the time came to choose new consuls.

The situation was very tense, with conspiratorial meetings that the incoming consuls did not want to prevent so as not to aggravate it, to which the Senate demanded an end. In the end, it was decided to proceed with compulsory recruitment; it was a failure because no one responded when their name was read, and when the lictors tried to arrest someone, the crowd prevented them. There were senators who called for a dictatorship, and the one chosen for it was Manius Valerius Maximus, brother of Publius Valerius, a prestigious consul who had instituted the popular assembly after the overthrow of the monarchy, earning the cognomen Publicola (friend of the people).

The dictator managed to convince the people to defend Rome from the attack of Sabines, Volsci, and Aequi, forming ten legions that achieved a total victory. But upon their return, the internal problem reappeared: despite the mediation of Manius Valerius, the senators continued to refuse to grant anything to the plebeians, and when the dictator resigned, they demanded that the army leave the city. In that context, the character who was going to change everything emerged: Lucius Sicinius Vellutus, the plebeian who had the idea of the secessio plebis.

Secessio plebis on Mons Sacer
Secessio plebis on Mons Sacer. Credit: public domain on Wikimedia Commons

Vellutus proposed that all of his class accompany the soldiers out of Rome, which was carried out massively. The city emptied, as the patricians were a minority, while the bulk of the Romans established a camp with a palisade and ditch on  Mons Sacer, a sacred mountain located on the other side of the river Anio, less than five kilometers away. As we said, a problem for Rome, which was not only left unprotected but also paralyzed economically and with the fear that the plebeians would found their own city.

The Senate had no choice but to negotiate, sending as a delegate the ex-consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus because, says Livy, his family was of plebeian origin. Menenius achieved an agreement between both parties whose main novelty, apart from the forgiveness of part of the debts, was the creation of a new magistracy, that of the tribunes of the plebs, officials eligible among the members of the ordo plebeius and whose mission was to defend its interests before the patrician consuls. There would be two (who in turn would elect three others) and they would be inviolable, equivalent to the later praetors.

The institution of a concilium plebis (assembly of plebeians) was also accepted, which had begun to function on the Mons Sacer along with two aediles (predecessors of the future quaestors). Not everything was solved because those problems had lasted a couple of years and during that time the fields were neglected, so in 492 BCE a famine struck Latium that forced grain to be imported from Etruria and Sicily, in addition to bringing new discussions. Some were resolved again by resorting to secessio plebis; in fact, four more were recorded, the first of them in 449 BCE, because of the way laws were interpreted.

Nomentano Bridge with Mons Sacer in the background (Giuseppe Vasi)
Nomentano Bridge with Mons Sacer in the background (Giuseppe Vasi). Credit: public domain on Wikimedia Commons

In the year 450, another magistracy had been established, the decemvirate, composed of ten magistrates who superimposed their authority over that of the consuls. The legal tradition until then was oral, which meant that the decemvirs interpreted the law subjectively and, in conflicts between patricians and plebeians, they usually ruled in favor of the former, after all, the class to which they belonged. Their capricious actions, which included the execution of a former tribune of the plebs, ended up infuriating the people.

Street riots were repeated, and the validity of the tribunate was suspended, so, just like before, the irritated people resorted to secessio: the plebeians left Rome and joined the legions camped on the Aventine, marching all subsequently to Mons Sacer. The Senate reprimanded the decemvirs and sent two representatives to negotiate, achieving success: the plebeians would return but in exchange, their tribunes had to be reinstated and the right of appeal, as well as the system of interpreting the law, had to be changed.

Thus, the oral tradition was abandoned in favor of the written one. It was something that had been planned before, when the decemvirate was instituted, and which was now embodied in the Laws of the Twelve Tables (so called because it was written on wooden tables, later bronze), a source of Roman Law although inspired by Solon’s legislation (in fact, a commission was sent to Greece to study it). The two new consuls, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, who were the ones who negotiated between both parties, ordered their placement in the Forum, for public viewing.

The objective of that legal corpus, completed with the so-called Valerian-Horatian Laws, was the legal equality of all Roman citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, although the Senate retained the right of veto. Of course, it was a long and complex process in which steps forward were taken but also backward (the patricians even went so far as to assassinate one of their own whom they considered too conciliatory, Spurius Cassius Vecellinus). And when the latter happened, the plebeians relied on the secessio.

The death of Virginia (Camillo Miola), one of the episodes that angered the plebs.
The death of Virginia (Camillo Miola), one of the episodes that angered the plebs. Credit: public domain on Wikimedia Commons

There were less significant ones in the years 445 and 342 BCE, as a result of which the ordo plebeius obtained more concessions: entry into the consular military tribunate, admission of marriage with members of the patriciate, access to the quaestorship, and even the possibility of a plebeian being appointed consul and/or pontiff. Yes, always with nuances and limitations.

The last proper secessio plebis took place in 267 BCE when the plebeians marched to the Janiculum (a hill) due to senatorial reluctance to accept the decisions made by the plebis scitum (a legislative assembly) and, more specifically, the Lex Hortensia (named after its promoter, the plebeian dictator Quintus Hortensius). This was an initiative that forced the Comitia Centuriata (the assemblies) to vote on the holding of plebiscites, as well as to accept their results by all the people.

Although plebiscites were not new, what the plebeians achieved via secessio was that their results had the force of law and were thus implemented, also obliging the patricians and regardless of the opinion of the Senate (although they recommended their consultation). The fact is that plebeians and patricians were equalized in rights, both civil and political, and the former obtained full access to all magistracies, Senate included. Likewise, the agrarian problem lost importance thanks to the land extensions gained in the conquest of Italy, and the other major issue, that of debtors, was resolved by eliminating the possibility of their enslavement. In this way, that long conflict between social classes came to an end.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on December 3, 2018. Puedes leer la versión en español en Secessio plebis, el antecedente romano de la huelga general en la que el pueblo abandonaba la ciudad

Sources

Tito Livio, Historia de Roma desde su fundación | Sergei Ivanovich Kovaliov, Historia de Roma | Monte L. Pearson, Perils of Empire. The Roman Republic and the American Republic | José Manuel Roldán Hervás, Historia de Roma | Miguel Catalán, Mentira y poder político. Seudología VII | Wikipedia

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