Omnia deinde arbitrio militum acta Political initiative and the agency (original) (raw)
2022, Leadership and Initiative in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome / Edited by Roman M. Frolov, Christopher Burden-Strevens. – Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2022
Abstract This chapter assesses the political agency of the Roman army “from below” and explores the forms of initiative that could be adopted by the rank and file, including their participation in military mutinies, unrest, and coups d’ état. Who were the auctores seditionis mentioned in ancient literary sources? When, why, and in what ways did they act as a particular initiative group leading the mass of mutinous soldiers? What was the part of junior- and middle-ranking officers as a counter-force and, in some cases, as initiators, speakers, or organizers of political actions, including in the overthrow of emperors? And what were the mechanics of the troops’ collective activity and decision-making when the military acted in defense of their particular interests or as “king-makers”? To define the situation under the principate, this paper turns to a comparative analysis of the army’s political involvement in the late-republican civil wars and after the Augustan settlement. This comparison demonstrates that Augustus and later emperors failed to depoliticize the army within which the former republican traditions of military community continued to exist, and soldiers often behaved not as mere mercenaries but as a “citizenry in arms.”
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