Rational Mutiny in the Year of Four Emperors

Abstract

Roman writers tended to see the mutinies accompanying the civil wars of AD 69 -70 as evidence of the unreliability and even the downright insanity of the troops involved. Those troops were frequently critical of their leaders, suspicious of their officers, and dangerous to soldiers and civilians alike; but this is not quite the whole story. Much of their supposed insanity is explicable in terms of struggles – admittedly not always wise - over goals on which the men involved were not always able to agree. Though some of their suspicions were wrong-headed and might be disastrous in their consequences, others were well founded and the resulting actions could be restrained and reasonable. Much of the sad tale of repeated mutiny may be traced, in fact, to the attempts of ordinary soldiers to adjust to the circumstances of civil war without giving up what they considered their own legitimate interests.