It is thus apparent that the mere overthrow of the kings at Rome had accomplished little for the ordinary Roman citizen. In fact, the rule of a single monarch is often more beneficial to the poorer classes of a community than the rule of a favored class. The establishment of a republic, however, had eliminated one political element, and cleared the stage for the contest between the patricians and plebeians.
That the economic condition of the poorer classes in Rome changed for the worse after the institution of the republic is certain. It was for the interest of the early Roman kings to favor and protect the small Roman farmers, both for military and economic reasons. While the permanent interests of the patricians would have been promoted by the encouragement of this class, their temporary selfish interests called for the destruction of the Roman middle class, primarily the middle agricultural class, and the division of all Roman inhabitants into a small aristocracy on the one hand and a large proletariat on the other.
The two forms of exactions which fell the heaviest upon the Roman poorer classes were the barbarous laws against debtors and the dishonest administration of the public leaders. The desperate condition of the debtors at Rome at this time was a result of a number of different causes, including the high rate of interest, the right of the creditor to sell the debtor into slavery if the debt were not paid, the policy of the patrician creditors to demand the last pound of flesh in all their transactions, and the conditions which existed in Rome at this time which compelled many small landowners, against their wish and without any fault of their own, to become borrowers of money.
One harsh feature of this condition was the fact that it was the military service, which as Roman citizens they were compelled to render to the state, that more often than any other cause compelled the plebeians to borrow money and thus ultimately drove them to their ruin. For example, a small Roman farmer, through absence from his home on military service for the state, might lose his crop for the year. To support himself and his family until the next harvest, and to supply the means for the planting of the next year's crop, he would be obliged to borrow money, which, under the exorbitant rates of interest, soon reached an amount out of proportion to the original loan. Perhaps a second campaign would deprive him of the means of returning the loan, and his lands would be taken from him and he himself sold into slavery. As a final blow, the unfortunate plebeian saw the lands which had been won for the state by armies composed of his fellow plebeians reserved entirely for the use of the favored patrician order.
No more pernicious and unfair system could have been evolved than that which governed the management of the Roman public lands in the very first years of the republic. The earlier policy, under the kings, had been to divide the public land of the state into small allotments and to distribute it among those citizens of the state who most needed it. With the republic this policy ceased, and the public lands were nominally retained in the public ownership, but in reality were let out on leases to the patricians and a few favored men among the plebeians.
In theory the state retained the right to take back the land at any time and to receive a rent from the lessee; but in practice both these rights were disregarded. The lands held in this manner by the patricians were soon considered by them as much their own property as those to which they held the legal title, and were devised and pledged by their owners in substantially the same manner as any other land. The collection of the rent was soon abandoned; and not only this, but the land being in theory state land, the lessee (who was supposed to, but did not, pay rent) was not liable to pay taxes on this land.
The final working out of this matter may be summed up by saying that the poorer class of the plebeians furnished most of the soldiers for the campaign, stood most of the expense, suffered nearly all the losses both of life and property, were excluded from any share in the land captured in the war, and as a culmination saw their taxes yearly increased on account of the fact that the patricians, who monopolized the public land, succeeded in dodging the payment of rent and in evading the payment of taxes.
It was these conditions which brought about the remarkable spectacle of what may be well designated the first recorded strike in history—a strike in the Roman army. In 495 B.C. the Roman citizens were summoned to take the field for another military campaign. They refused to obey. One of the consuls, Publius Servilius, however, induced them to make the campaign by suspending some of the laws bearing most heavily upon the poor and by releasing all persons in prison for debt. But hardly had the army returned from a victorious campaign than the other consul, Appius Claudius, as a reward for their victory began to enforce the debtor laws with extraordinary severity.
Once more, in the following year, the plebeians were induced to take the field, mainly on account of the popularity of the dictator appointed for the management of this campaign, Marius Valerius, and his promise that upon the termination of the campaign permanent reforms would be made in the law. Again the Roman army was victorious, and again the patricians broke faith with the plebeians and refused to carry out their promised reforms.
The next scene in this conflict is one almost without parallel, either in ancient or modern history. The plebeians, disgusted by the selfishness and perfidy of the patricians, determined to abandon Rome to the patrician order and to found a new city for themselves upon the "Sacred Mount," a hill situated between the Tiber and the Anio. The patricians, thunderstruck by this unexpected movement, and being far more in need of the plebeians than the plebeians were of them, immediately made sufficient concessions to the plebeians to induce them to return to Rome.