This chapter examines three subjects relating to the themes of authority and allegiances. The first section considers the qualities that Romans considered important for effective generalship, including calculated displays of courage and a reputation for good fortune, which astute generals could foster as a way of strengthening their authority and the morale of their men. The much-debated subject of pre-battle speeches is also discussed, with less familiar but highly relevant late Roman evidence brought to bear. The second section examines the strategies deployed for maintaining the obedience of soldiers and changing patterns of military mutiny over the course of Roman history, with a view to identifying factors which influenced its incidence. The third and final section addresses the subject of civil war: its incidence and impact, and the ways in which commanders sought to negotiate the strains that internal conflicts placed on soldiers’ loyalties.

This chapter discusses Mujuru’s leadership in the 1979-80 Rhodesia/Zimbabwe ceasefire, which was managed by Britain and the Commonwealth Monitoring Force (CMF). The chapter argues Mujuru was important to the ceasefire’s success because he filled the leadership vacuum created by the ZANLA commander Josiah Tongogara’s sudden death on the eve of the truce in 1979. Literature on the ceasefire elides (erroneously) Mujuru’s effectual leadership of ZANLA in the aftermath of Tongogara’s death. Mujuru ensured ZANLA guerrillas’ participation in the ceasefire, although he ordered many of them to remain outside the Assembly Points as contingency in case the truce collapsed and for the purposes of campaigning for ZANU PF in the independence election from within their operational spheres. The chapter makes an additional corrective to the literature by drawing attention to the neglected import of the politics of race and class and subjective ideas about generalship in shaping relations between ceasefire leaders.