Spqr Snafu: Indiscipline and internal conflict in the late Republic

The period between 91 and 30 was marked by numerous internal conflicts, political violence, and civil wars. For the same period, ancient sources attest to 76 incidents of collective and individual indiscipline in Roman armies - including conspiracy, mutiny, expressions of grievances, as well as insubordination in all its varieties, more than for any other period. The number of such incidents has led some scholars to see the military during this period as aberrant, both reacting to and causing political instability. Close analysis of the individual episodes, however, reveal that military indiscipline in this period resulted from the usual factors common to outbreaks in other more "typical" contexts, such as weak leadership, combat exhaustion, and poor service terms. The increased frequency of recorded incidences of indiscipline in the period of internal conflicts is in part a product of a greater number of surviving sources for the period, and in part a predictable outcome of the usually high levels of military activity in this period.