In the Greece that Polybius knew, and in the Rome of his day, the army was made up of citizens under arms. Many of these citizens enrolled in the levy at the start of the campaigning season in the expectation that they would go home to their family farms or businesses at the end of the year. When ‘the people’ of such a state become disaffected, the result is not public demonstrations and the hurling of brickbats, or even rioting, which might be controlled by calling in the army. When the army is the people, things much more substantial than brickbats are thrown, and they are thrown with
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