The invention of civil-war

Two thousand years ago the Romans invented civil war, is the assertion. The assertion is not a stupid assertion. Ignorant, but not stupid.

The not-stupid part is that OBVIOUSLY ancient empires broke apart internally and fought amongst themselves, like, constantly; but this is so OBVIOUS that it should pose for us all to step back and define our terms. Do we call what transpired between Mursilis II and Hattusilis III a "civil war"? George Martin would be well in his rights to re-apply his question, what's their difference in tax-policy. We can talk further about nativist revolts, like Parthia against the Seleucids. Two different languages, two different slates-of-genome. Inasmuch as the American Nations differ, there's a case that her own "Civil War" was a Yankee conquest of nations that shouldn't have been gathered in the first place - like Antiochus III's.

We need to go back to roots, to the Latin civitas. That's polis to the Greeks out there. The Greek equivalent to "civil war" was "statis". Statis arose in such poleis as faced crisis (more Greek!) in ruling legitimacy. Greeks wrote a voluminous literature in how city-states came to internal blows.

To the extent Rome innovated in statis, it seems only because the Romania had more space to move armies around in.

To bring back our Civil War / Northern Aggression analogy, there do exist differences in populations. Those different populations will generally have different opinions on how to run a state. Usually you will hear "As A Black Man, I am voting for the Democratic NPC here, I don't care if he is driving around in seven new Mercedes". Or "As An Asian, I can't stand how Trump caters to racists". Whites trend more cagey about this, couching their resentments as "Patriotism". "Education", on the other side (those stupid, stupid rednecks!).

For Rome and even for such tiny statelets as Athens, they had genetic differences as well. It wasn't easy for a prole to be a patrician. Even under the Athenaean "Democracy" the old families still existed, and still had their networks of clientage or - failing that - their money and lands. They married like to like.

Thus nuanced: man is not entirely tribal. There do still exist arguments from first-principles, which do sometimes work to peel people off their Best Interests into a different cause (thinking about that meme on how Trump voters vote). Religious enthusiasm is a good example.

All this said, I should look to an early ideologic society before I look to the first ideologic internal war. Ansharist Assyria is ringing my bells here. Was there an internal dialogue about how best to serve Anshar? When princeling Pul crowned himself "Tigulthu'Pilesher III" in 745 BC?