Roman civil wars

A series of armed conflicts among Roman factions and commanders during the Republic’s final century, ending with the establishment of Augustus’s rule.

Sulla's civil wars: Armed struggles between Sulla and his Roman rivals that culminated in his dictatorship in 82 BCE. They brought Roman armies into Rome and established a precedent for military seizure of power.
Roman legion: The principal military unit of the Roman army, composed of citizen soldiers and organized into cohorts. Commanders’ control of loyal legions made political claims enforceable by force.
Gaius Marius: A Roman general and statesman who held the consulship seven times and fought in the Social War. His rivalry with Sulla helped ignite the Republic’s first major civil conflict.
First Triumvirate: An informal political alliance of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus formed around 60 BCE. Its collapse sharpened the rivalry that led Caesar and Pompey to war.
Social War: The war from 91 to 87 BCE in which Rome’s Italian allies fought for Roman citizenship. It was a major Italian conflict that preceded, but was not itself, a Roman factional civil war.
Caesar's civil war: The war between Julius Caesar and Pompey and their allies, fought from 49 to 45 BCE. Caesar’s victory destroyed the Republic’s remaining balance of power.
Roman client army: A force recruited and maintained through a commander’s personal ties with soldiers and local allies. Personal loyalty could compete with soldiers’ obligations to the Roman state.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla: A Roman general and dictator who marched on Rome and seized power during the civil wars of the 80s BCE. His march on Rome made armed intervention in domestic politics a precedent.
Second Triumvirate: A legally established alliance of Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus formed in 43 BCE. It divided power among victors after Caesar’s assassination and launched new civil conflicts.
Servile Wars: A series of revolts by enslaved people against Roman rule, including the revolt led by Spartacus. These uprisings challenged Roman authority without being wars between Roman political factions.

Linked from 35 pages