Today's selection -- from The Rise of Rome by Anthony Everitt. In 494 BCE, the people of Rome
staged one of the most remarkable and imaginative protests in world history.
Though this protest brought some reform, it underscored the seemingly
never-ending struggle of the plebs against the major landowners and ruling
elite:
"It was
the strangest spectacle seen since the foundation of Rome. A long stream of
families could be observed leaving the city in what looked like a general
evacuation. They walked southward and climbed a sparsely populated hill, the
Aventine, which stands across a valley from the Palatine, the site of Romulus's
first settlement. They were, broadly speaking, the poor and the disadvantaged
-- artisans and farmers, peasants and urban workers. They carried with them a
few days' worth of food. On arrival they set up camp, building a stockade and a
trench. There they stayed quietly, like a weaponless army, offering no
provocation or violence. They waited, doing nothing.
"This was
a mass protest, one of the most remarkable and imaginative in world history. It
was like a modern general strike, but with an added dimension. The workers were
not simply withdrawing their labor; they were withdrawing themselves. ...
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The Secession of the People to the Mons Sacer,
engraving by B. Barloccini, 1849.
"What, then, was their complaint? ... The poor were
burdened with debt and arbitrary treatment by those in authority; they sought
redress. Many had reached a point where the only thing they owned with which
to repay their debts was themselves -- their labor, their bodies. In that
case, they were able to enter into a system of debt bondage, known as nexum,
literally an interlacing or binding together. In the presence of five
witnesses, a lender weighed out the money or copper to be lent. The debtor
could now settle what he owed. In return he handed himself over -- his person
and his services (although he retained his civic rights). The lender recited
a formula: 'For such and such a sum of money you are now nexus,
my bondsman.' He then chained the debtor, to dramatize his side of the
bargain.
"This brutal arrangement did not in itself attract
disapproval, for it did provide a solution, however rough-and-ready, to
extreme indebtedness. What really aroused anger was the oppressive or unfair
treatment of a bonded slave. The creditor-owner even had the right to put him
to death, at least in theory. Livy tells the story of a victim, an old man,
who suddenly appeared one day in the Forum. Pale and emaciated, he wore
soiled and threadbare clothes. His hair and beard were unkempt. Altogether,
he was a pitiable sight. A crowd gathered, and learned that he had once been
a soldier who commanded a company and served his country with distinction.
How had he come to this pass? He replied:
While I was on service during the Sabine war, my crops
were ruined by enemy raids, and my cottage was burnt. Everything I had was
taken, including my cattle. Then, when I was least able to do so, I was
expected to pay taxes, and the result was I fell into debt. Interest on the
borrowed money increased my burden; I lost the land which my father and
grandfather had owned before me, and then my other possessions. Ruin spread
like an infection through all I had. Even my body wasn't exempt, for I was
finally seized by my creditor and reduced to slavery -- no, worse, I was
hauled away to prison and the torture chamber ...
"In 326, a scandal led to the reform of debt bondage,
the nexum. An attractive youth sold himself into bondage to a
creditor of his father. The creditor regarded the youth's charms as an
additional bonus to sweeten the loan and tried to seduce his new acquisition.
Meeting resistance, he had the boy stripped naked and flogged. Bleeding from
the lash, the boy rushed out into the street. An angry crowd gathered and
marched on the Senate House for general redress.
"The consuls, taken aback, conceded the point. They
won the People's approval of a law limiting the nexum to
extreme cases, which, in addition, had to be adjudicated by a court. As a
rule, to repay money lent him, a debtor's property could be seized, but not
his person."
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