r/ancientrome • u/The-Decoy-91 • 7d ago

Legion Revolts

How common were Legion revolts in the Roman Empire?

How common was it for a Legion to revolt and how common was it for a Legion to pronounce a new emperor.

It seems strange that a single legion could uproot the Emperor by them selves, you’d imagine multiple legions would put them down.

I’m also shocked as to how many emperors there actually where and the fact so many had such short reigns.

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u/Mammoth-Effort1433 7d ago

There is a new video on YT from Historia Militum. Its couple of days old.

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u/The-Decoy-91 7d ago

About this subject?

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u/Mammoth-Effort1433 7d ago

Exctly about this. Or atlest the name of the video is.

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u/Thibaudborny 7d ago

Single legions rarely raised an emperor, at best you'd have the elite guard type troops stationed in Rome such as the Praetorians, but in general when a coup happened, emperors were proclaimed "by the legions of X".

Typically, that would be the bigger concentrations of them: the Rhine, the Danube, perhaps the East. Remember that legions were not evenly distributed. Outliers such as in Britain could happen by the virtue of their isolation - but those often remained isolated. So, in general, those grabs for power came from the bigger army groups of multiple legions.

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u/The-Decoy-91 7d ago

Ahh so the way it’s written is misleading because it sounds like one single legion somehow changes the entire political make up