Sarah Bond is an associate professor in classics in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire.
Present-day attacks on the right to free assembly have a long history behind them. For centuries, the rulers of ancient Rome tried to stop its people from organizing to defend their interests, but protest kept resurfacing despite their best efforts.
Ancient Rome was a rigidly hierarchical society where the ruling elite stigmatized everyone who had to work with their hands. Yet Roman workers still found ways to resist exploitation through strikes and other forms of collective action.