Secessio ('secession') is the term used in Latin sources to describe the withdrawal of the Roman plebs to a hill outside the sacred boundary (pomerium) of the city. It implies detachment from public life as well as emigration from Rome, and was an extreme form of civil disobedience, particularly as it entailed refusal of military service. The fact that the state was not immediately brought to its knees proves that the plebs did not form a majority of the population, still less of the army. The first secession is said to have occurred in 494 bce, when the plebeians, oppressed by debt and arbitrary treatment, seceded to the Sacred Mount (mons Sacer), a hill to the north-east of Rome (though some sources say the Aventine). The crisis, which was resolved by Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, produced the plebeian organization. See Rome (history), §1.2. The second secession, to the Aventine, brought down the decemvirs (449 bce; see decemvirates). The last secession, to the Janiculum, was provoked by a debt crisis in c.287, and was resolved by the dictator Q. Hortensius. It is uncertain whether tradition knew of any other instances. Only the unreliable Florus (1) (1. 25) mentions a secession in 445 bce, and one of the few certain things about the obscure military revolt of 342 (Livy 7. 38–42), sometimes called ‘the fourth secession’ in modern books, is that it was nothing of the kind. The act of secession had an important place in the historical tradition of the plebs, and it is possible that, when in 121 bceC. Sempronius Gracchus and his followers withdrew to the Aventine, they were attempting to revive the ancient practice of secession.