Rome: debtors in bonds; the first secession

Livy describes Roman debtors bound over to their creditors (nexi) and complaining that while they fought for Rome abroad they were enslaved by fellow citizens at home, among them a veteran centurion whose debt had taken his farm, his property and then his person. In 494 BC the plebs withdrew from the city to the Sacred Mount, the first of several secessions, and the settlement created the tribunes of the plebs.

The mechanism

CAPTURE

How it was checked

• EvidenceT5 INDEPENDENT SECULAR; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
• Letter eraTHE PROPHETS AND THE ROAD 776 BC to 4 BC
• SourcesRECORD — Livy, History of Rome 2.23 and 2.32 (trans. Canon Roberts), Perseus Digital Library; Wikipedia, 'Secessio plebis' (cross-check of the date; cites Cary and Scullard) · checked 19 September: Livy 2.23 and 2.33 (trans. Roberts), Perseus; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 6.83-89 (Loeb, Cary), LacusCurtius