Record · Classical world · Europe · 494 BC · Rulers & dynasties · Daily life

The plebeians' walkout to the Sacred Mount and the first tribunes

Edited by Song Letter · Researched and written with AI assistance, checked against the sources below · How we make it

Published 2026-08-13 · Reviewed 2026-10-11 · 4 min read

Reconstruction: plebeians camped in tents on a hill outside early Rome as senators approach — Plebeians camped on the Sacred Mount outside Rome during the first secession, 494 BC. AI reconstruction, based on Livy 2.32-33 on the first secession; early Republican Rome as a modest town of timber and tufa, no marble monuments.

TL;DR — In 494 BC Rome’s plebeian soldiers left the city for the Sacred Mount; they returned only after winning their own officials, the tribunes of the plebs.

In the early Roman Republic the common people, the plebs, won their first officials by leaving. Livy tells how plebeian soldiers, held to their oath and marched out of the city, instead withdrew “to the Sacred Mount, which lay on the other side of the Anio, three miles from the City.” The summaries of his history date it to 494 BC and give the cause as “the servitude of debtors.” They came back after the patricians agreed that “the plebs should have its own magistrates, whose persons were to be inviolable.”

Quick facts

When: The first secession in 494 BC by the Varronian dates; the last in 287 BC
Where: The Sacred Mount, across the Anio three miles from Rome (the Aventine in another tradition)
Who: The plebeians, led by Sicinius; the senate's envoy Menenius Agrippa
Outcome: The plebs won magistrates of their own, the tribunes, whose persons were inviolable and who could protect citizens against the consuls

Soldiers held by an oath

The crisis began with the army. The Senate, Livy writes, feared that if the army were disbanded “there should be a recurrence of the secret conclaves and conspiracies,” and since the soldiers “had sworn obedience to the consuls,” it “ordered the legions to be marched out of the City on the pretext that war had been recommenced by the Aequi.”

The soldiers looked for a way out of their oath. “At the instigation of a certain Sicinius,” they decided “to ignore the consuls and withdraw to the Sacred Mount.” Livy notes that this was “a more generally accepted tradition than the one adopted by Piso that the secession was made to the Aventine.”

A quiet camp

The secession was a withdrawal, not an attack. “There, without any commander, in a regularly entrenched camp, taking nothing with them but the necessaries of life,” Livy writes, “they quietly maintained themselves for some days, neither receiving nor giving any provocation.”

The city was left in fear. Plebeians still inside feared the patricians, and the patricians feared them. “What would happen if a foreign war broke out in the meantime?” people asked, and the Senate concluded that concord “must be restored at any cost.”

The fable of the belly

The Senate sent Menenius Agrippa, “an eloquent man, and acceptable to the plebs as being himself of plebeian origin.” He told them a fable. The parts of the body, angry that everything they gathered went to the belly while it “did nothing but enjoy the pleasures provided for it,” refused to feed it, and so “the members themselves wasted away.” The belly, it turned out, returned to every part of the body the nourishment by which it lived. Livy’s summaries record that when Menenius died, he received a state funeral “because he was so poor.”

Magistrates of their own

The settlement created a new office. “The plebs should have its own magistrates, whose persons were to be inviolable, and who should have the right of affording protection against the consuls,” Livy writes, and “no patrician should be allowed to hold that office.”

How many tribunes there were at first is uncertain. Livy writes that “two ‘tribunes of the plebs’ were elected, C. Licinius and L. Albinus,” who “chose three colleagues,” among them Sicinius, but adds another version, in which “only two tribunes were created on the Sacred Hill.” The summary of his book says five.

Carved marble sarcophagus of Lucius Sabinus, a tribune of the plebs, dated about AD 150 — Sarcophagus of Lucius Sabinus, a tribune of the plebs, carved around AD 150, centuries after the office was created. sailko / CC BY-SA 3.0. Source

The last secession

The struggle went on for two centuries. The Twelve Tables, Rome’s first written code, were drawn up, according to the Avalon Project at Yale Law School, “by a commission, first of ten and then of twelve men, in 451-450 B.C.” and ratified in 449 BC; Livy has the commissioners claim to have “established equal laws for all, for highest and lowest alike.” The last secession came in 287 BC, when, Livy’s summaries record, “because of their debts, and after heavy and long riots, the plebeians left and settled on the Janiculum hill, from where they were led back by dictator Quintus Hortensius.”

Key facts

Livy’s summaries date the first secession to 494 BC and blame “the servitude of debtors” (Livy, Periochae).
The plebeian soldiers withdrew to the Sacred Mount, across the Anio three miles from Rome; Piso placed it on the Aventine (Livy 2.32).
Menenius Agrippa, of plebeian origin, persuaded them with the fable of the belly and the members (Livy 2.32).
The plebs won magistrates whose persons were inviolable and who could protect citizens against the consuls (Livy 2.33).
The first tribunes were two or five; Livy’s sources disagreed (Livy 2.33; Periochae).
The last secession, to the Janiculum in 287 BC, ended under the dictator Quintus Hortensius (Livy, Periochae).

FAQ

What was the secession of the plebs?

A withdrawal of Rome's plebeian soldiers from the city to the Sacred Mount, dated to 494 BC. They camped there quietly until the patricians agreed to give them their own magistrates.

What did the plebeians win in 494 BC?

The tribunes of the plebs: magistrates whose persons were inviolable and who could protect citizens against the consuls. No patrician could hold the office.

Where did the plebeians go?

To the Sacred Mount, across the river Anio three miles from Rome, in the tradition Livy follows. The annalist Piso said the Aventine.

What was Menenius Agrippa's fable?

He compared the city to a body whose members refused to feed the belly and so starved themselves, to show that the patricians and plebeians needed each other.

How many times did the plebeians secede?

Livy's summaries record the first in 494 BC and a last one, to the Janiculum, in 287 BC, ended by the dictator Quintus Hortensius.

Sources

The whole world at about the same time: The world in 500 BC

Cite this article

APA: Song Letter. (2026, October 11). The plebeians' walkout to the Sacred Mount and the first tribunes. Our Earth's History. https://ourearthshistory.com/europe/classical/rome-plebeians-secession-general-strike-tribune/
Chicago: Song Letter. “The plebeians' walkout to the Sacred Mount and the first tribunes.” Our Earth's History, October 11, 2026. https://ourearthshistory.com/europe/classical/rome-plebeians-secession-general-strike-tribune/.
MLA: Song Letter. “The plebeians' walkout to the Sacred Mount and the first tribunes.” Our Earth's History, 11 Oct. 2026, https://ourearthshistory.com/europe/classical/rome-plebeians-secession-general-strike-tribune/.

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