Historical factor
Civil war
Civil war, armed conflict between rival factions within a single state, is a recurring cause of imperial decline. Succession disputes, regional rebellions and rivalry among generals drained resources, divided armies and invited foreign intervention. Examples include the late Roman Republic's civil wars, the fitnas that divided the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates, the dynastic wars of the Seleucid Empire and the Kongo Empire's civil wars after 1665.
Mentioned in 25 profiles
Afsharid EmpireDeclineAssyrian EmpireDeclineBenin EmpireDeclineBrazilian EmpireImpactByzantine EmpireMilitary, DeclineCarolingian EmpireDeclineChagatai EmpireFoundationFrench EmpireFoundationKongo EmpireDeclineLuba EmpireDecline, SummaryMajapahit EmpireDeclineParthian EmpireDeclinePtolemaic EmpireDeclineQing EmpireImpactRashidun CaliphateGovernanceRoman EmpireFoundation, MilitarySeleucid EmpireDeclineSeljuk EmpireMilitary, DeclineSonghai EmpireGovernance, DeclineTimurid EmpireFoundationUmayyad CaliphateFoundationWadai EmpireDeclineXiongnu EmpireDeclineYuan DynastyFoundationZand EmpireSocioeconomy, Impact, Decline
See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Civil war. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/civil-war
- MLA
- “Civil war.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/civil-war. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Civil war.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/civil-war.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Civil war’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/civil-war (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻