From the outbreak of the Second Punic War in 218 to the Social War in 91, the Romans had prolonged debates about the changing nature of warfare, culminating in Rome’s first civil war in 88 BCE. The Second Punic War was a war of survival against Rome’s great enemy, Carthage, but also saw Rome’s subject-allies rebel on a large scale, equalling an internal war within the polity of Rome.

Carsten Hjort Lange

The words and concepts we use to describe a particular war speak volumes about who we are as individuals and as a community, and where we stand in an unfolding conflict. Concepts have always been used to occupy the moral high ground. Rebellion, for example, is used to delegitimise those who rebel.

Civil War Seen Through the Lens of Ancient History

Introducing a Blog on Polarization, Conflict, and Reconciliation in Antiquity

Johannes Wienand

Welcome to
<strong>
 Stasis – Avenues to Ancient Civil War
</strong>
, an academic blog on polarization, internal conflict, and reconciliation in antiquity. Internal conflict has shaped the course of civilizations, and studying this multifaceted phenomenon offers invaluable insight into the cohesive forces and disintegrative potentials of human culture.

Stasis. An Academic Blog on Ancient Civil War

Stasis

Welcome to **[Stasis -- Avenues to Ancient Civil
War]{style="color: #cd2653"}**, an academic blog on polarization,
internal conflict, and reconciliation in antiquity.

Internal conflict has shaped the course of civilizations, and studying
this multifaceted phenomenon offers invaluable insight into the cohesive
forces and disintegrative potentials of human culture. Yet our
understanding of how polarization, violent disintegration, and
reconciliation transformed the ancient world remains limited to date.
Against this backdrop, this blog -- and a new book series *Studies in
Ancient Civil War*
([StACW](https://www.degruyter.com/serial/stacw-b/html){data-type="URL"
data-id="https://www.degruyter.com/serial/stacw-b/html" target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}) to which it is related -- provide unique and
timely academic fora for exploring the processes and implications of
civil war in antiquity, from factionalization and destructive internal
strife to reintegration and reconstruction. Interconnecting historical,
philological, and archaeological perspectives, the blog covers the wider
Mediterranean world and the Near East from the second millennium BCE
through the first millennium CE. It seeks to deepen our understanding of
the profound impact that the collapse and reconstruction of political
orders in civil wars had on ancient societies.

The blog welcomes contributions exploring any given aspect of ancient
civil war (including its wider socio-political, cultural, and
ideological implications), and examining its lasting reverberations
throughout time. Posts on this blog can have the form of source
readings, reviews, opinion pieces, project presentations, introductions
to forthcoming articles and book etc. We invite scholarly contributions
from all fields of study related to the ancient world, from the archaic
period through late antiquity, including the early medieval period,
early Byzantium, and early Islam.

All contributions are subject to peer review to maintain academic
quality standards. Authors can republish their posts in the submitted,
accepted, or published version in other repositories, on their own
website, in journals or books at any time. The blog uses persistent
identifyers: Each post has a unique and permanent URL as well as a
registered DOI and registered metadata.

For more information, see [About the
Blog](https://stasis.hypotheses.org/about){rel="noreferrer noopener"
data-type="page" data-id="2" target="_blank"}, and
[Impressum](https://stasis.hypotheses.org/credits){rel="noreferrer noopener"
data-type="page" data-id="259" target="_blank"}.

DOI:
[10.59350/377m7-vkt78](https://doi.org/10.59350/377m7-vkt78){rel="noreferrer noopener"
target="_blank"}
