CHAZ and the Plebeian Secessions

13 June 2020

            The protests and uprisings around the United States (and the world) sparked by the murder of George Flyod, but surrounding a centuries-long chain of oppression, have put me in mind of the Plebeian Secessions. To compare the United States to Rome is certainly not a novel idea; arguably the writers of the Constitution intended as much, many of them being well-versed in the Classical world and having named one of the government’s deliberative bodies “the Senate.”

People tend to think of the Roman Empire when the great nation is brought up, but Rome had nearly five centuries of loosely representative rule before succumbing to the tyranny of a dictator-turned-monarch. From its beginnings, the Roman Republic was highly stratified. The upper class, the Patricians, was characterized by their descent from the very first Senate, a group of one hundred men supposedly chosen by Rome’s founder, Romulus, to act as his advisors. The lower class was called the Plebeians, and they were defined quite simply: they did not have an ancestor included in that first Senate. They were counted as Roman citizens and so were able to vote, but they were not allowed to serve in most of the offices of government. Though a few were quite wealthy most Plebeians were relatively poor, working as artisans, shopkeepers, laborers, and servants in the urban areas and as small-holding free farmers in the rural areas. This last group was by far the largest portion of the Plebeians and the most important for the Roman state, as they fed the people and provided themselves and their sons for the Roman Army[1]. When Rome went to war, the Plebeians acted as infantry and so bore the brunt of the casualties. Those who made it home from war often had little to show for it or may have even returned to face serious debt. Roman men were expected to volunteer their time for the protection of the state, and so were not paid, though they might collect some spoils of war along the way. Many returned home to find that their family had been unable to maintain the farm or family business and so were now destitute, with no aid from the state.

Such was the situation in the first half of the fifth century BCE, after an invasion by the Gauls and a series of wars around the Italian peninsula left many Plebeians destitute and in debt slavery to their Patrician creditors[2]. They petitioned the Senate for aid, emphasizing the importance of their class as soldiers and laborers, but were refused. In the face of that refusal, they sought a position in the government, to protect their own right and interests (as the Patricians had justified their overthrow of the king less than a century prior) and were rejected out of hand.

This led to an era commonly referred to as “The Struggle of the Orders,” during which the Plebeians made their value known to the Patricians. Twice during this time, the Plebeians removed themselves from the city of Rome with demands for debt relief and a place in the government. Their action left the Patricians without laborers, shopkeepers, and even domestic servants.[3] The first time, in 494 BCE, they were convinced to return with promises of economic reform and the creation of the Tribune of the Plebs, a magistracy that served to assure Plebeian needs were met. The tribunes did not have a great deal of power until 471 BCE, when they were fully acknowledged by the Senate and given the power to call meetings of the Plebs and to pass laws. Even then, the Plebeians were still in a second-class state, as the Patricians refused to share the laws or publish Rome’s legal code openly. It took another secession to force the publication of the laws in what came to be known as the Twelve Tables. After this, the Plebeians were able to gain access to most of the government offices and by the collapse of the Republic, the distinction between the two groups was paid little attention except for a few priesthoods and snobbish families making marriage arrangements.

A few days ago, when I first heard about the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle, my thoughts went two places: first, to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations about a decade ago and second, to the Plebeian Secessions. These were spontaneous actions of citizenry who could think of no other way to express their frustration and anger with a political and social system which had failed them. They are also examples of successful public demonstrations for redress of grievances. The Plebeian Secessions eventually forced the Roman government to make the laws public and to allow the lower class into the workings of their government. Occupy Wall Street was not so directly successful (some limited reforms were made to banking regulations), but it created a sense of possibility in a generation of Americans who felt they did not have a place in governance. The Occupy generation has been a large part of the reform movements spearheaded by Senator Bernie Sanders and his fellow Progressives and has been at the front of recent equality movements, like Black Lives Matter (BLM),and the fight for legal equality for the LGBTQIA community. Despite the backslide of the last few years, these movements have had successes, such as Obergfell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision recognizing marriage equality and the requiring of body cameras on police. I count the creation of the CHAZ as one of these successes or, at least, an indication thereof. CHAZ is doing what many of the Occupy camps did in the Fall and Winter of 2011-2012: they are providing food and medical care, housing the unhoused, providing financial assistance to its members, arranging for the care and teaching of children, and creating a sense of community that many in The Zone say they have been lacking. They seek to create a society that does not need policing, because the ills of society that prompt a police presence (so many of which come from people’s hopelessness in the face of debt and depression) will be solved communally. Unfortunately, like Occupy, they don’t have a clear vision for how to bring these ideals to pass but, also like Occupy, that may not matter in the long run. I very much doubt that most of the people in the area actually want to remove themselves from the governance and support of the city of Seattle, the state of Washington, and the United States of America. The Plebeian Secessions lasted only a short time as well, but they forced reform on the Roman government, which was their purpose in the first place.

It will be years, probably decades, before we can put together all of these elements to see how they led to that (hopefully better) future. Hopefully, like the Plebeian Secessions, the CHAZ will be seen as a place where positive change began.

[1] Self-equipped soldiers were the norm at this time, the professionalized Roman army we tend to think of was still a few centuries away

[2] There were no lending banks at this time as we think of in the modern day, if one needed a loan, it was made between individuals with little to no regulation and any legal proceedings were generally decided in favor of the lender.

[3] Rome had not yet begun to use slave labor as widely as it would in later centuries.