Mobility and the plebs in the early Republic: the example of the plebeian secessions

Recent studies have demonstrated the extent of the evidence for mobility in central Italy, yet its implications for early Rome are relatively little explored. I will focus on the plebeian movement, normally seen in terms of an internal political dispute. Our understanding of the ‘Struggle of the Orders’ is conditioned by the idealising view of our literary sources, who look back on the early Republic from a period when the plebeians provided many of the key members of the nobility. However, if we see the plebeian movement in its contemporary central Italian context, it emerges as much more threatening and potentially subversive. The key plebeian tactic, secession from the state, is often regarded as little more than a military strike. Instead, I argue that it is a genuine threat to abandon the community, and secessions can be seen as "paused migrations." This paper also considers two other episodes that support this picture, the migration to Rome of Attus Clausus and the Claudian gens, and the proposed move to Veii by the plebs.