Online Encyclopedia
Make a correction
Your email address will not appear on the site. Note, comments may take some time to be approved.
Back to article:
FACTION (through the French, from Lat. factio, a company of persons combined for action, facere, to do; from the other French derivative facon comes " fashion ")
Your email:
Article name:
Article content:
FACTION (through the French, from Lat. factio, a company of persons combined for action, facere, to do; from the other French derivative facon comes " fashion "), a term, used especially with an opprobrious meaning, for a body of partisans who put their party aims and interests above those of the state or public, and employ unscrupulous or questionable means; it is thus a common term of reciprocal abuse between parties. In the history of the Roman and Later Roman empires the factions ( factiones) of the circus and hippodrome, at Rome and Constantinople, played a prominent part in politics. The factibnes were properly the four companies into which the charioteets were divided, and distinguished by the colours they wore. Originally at Rome there were only two, white (albata) and red (rztssata), when each race was open to two chariots only; on the increase to four, the green (prasina) and blue (veneta) were added. At Constantinople the last two absorbed the red and white factions. For a brilliant description of the factions at Constantinople- under Justinian, and the part they played in the celebrated 'Nika riot in January 532, see Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. xl.; and J. B. Bury's Appendix to in vol. iv. of his edition (1898), for a discussion of the relationship between the factiones and the demes of Constantinople.