About fifteen years after the founding of the Republic, a debt crisis among the lower-class plebeians finally led to a great showdown. Incensed at arbitrary patrician abuse, the plebs refused to muster for military service when called to face a looming foreign threat. Instead the plebs withdrew en masse to a hill outside the city and swore to remain there until they were allowed to elect magistrates of their own. The Senate yielded and created the Plebeian Assembly, a popular assembly closed to patricians. This Assembly would elect tribunes who acted as guardians against patrician abuse. Any
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