THE people of Rome were divided into two great classes, the patricians or nobles, the plebeians or common people.
After the death of Tarquin the Proud, the patricians began to oppress the plebeians even more than they had done in the time of the kings.
Sometimes the poor were forced to borrow from the rich, and the rich, although they lent their money, demanded such heavy interest that the plebeians were often unable to pay their debts.
Then the patricians swept down upon the miserable debtors, drove their wives and children from their home, and carried them away to work as bondsmen.
When at any time war threatened Rome, the plebeians were called on to fight, and while they were at war their fields lay untilled, unless they hired labourers to work in them. In either case the plebeians suffered. Did they hire labourers, they must borrow money from the patricians to pay them. Did they leave their fields untilled, they musts borrow money to buy food and seed.
Driven at length to desperation, the plebeians rose against their oppressors, and at the very time that a hostile army was marching against Rome, they left the city, and encamped on a hill near the river Anio, about three miles away. Here they determined to build a city for themselves.
But the patricians could not hope to hold Rome against the approaching foe without the help of the plebeians. So the Senate sent a messenger to the ‘seceders,’ offering terms of peace and protection from the patricians, if they would return to Rome to fight against the common enemy.
The plebeians agreed to go back to the city, and for a time, at least, the patrician magistrates ceased to treat them unjustly.
To make them more secure, the plebeians were now, in 493 B.C., allowed to elect two magistrates of their own, who were to be called tribunes.
As the patricians were able to appeal to the Consuls, so the plebeians could now appeal to their tribunes against unjust treatment.
The tribunes were elected for one year, and during that year they were obliged to live in Rome, while their doors were to stand open day and night, that the plebeians might claim their protection at any hour.
This new law was made a sacred law, and the hill on which the seceders had encamped was named the Sacred Hill.