WI: Julia (Caesar's daughter) and her son live

As I'm sure many people here know, Julia was Julius Caesar's daughter and Pompey the Great's (4th IIRC) wife (the two seemed to actually be in love despite the marriage being political). She died in premature childbirth in 54 BC after seeing her husband's toga covered in blood and assumed it was Pompey's, although it was blood from rioters in the forum not Pompey's, and went into early labor. She died and her son died soon after.

So, what if Julia doesn't go into labor that day, and gives birth to a healthy son later on. How much, if any, would this affect the coming civil war? Do Pompey's personal ties to Caesar change his decisions at all?
 
Some sources say son and some say daughter...basically no one knows. So for the sake of it making things more interesting, I say it was a son :D
 
Possible, but I doubt A) that the Egyptians would kill Julia and her son along with Pompey but it is possible and B) that Julia would end up in Egypt at all.
 
Pompey's child by Julia would be made Caesar's heir and the Civil Wars would happen on schedule the real change will be Post Civil War
 
Pompey's child by Julia would be made Caesar's heir and the Civil Wars would happen on schedule the real change will be Post Civil War

This could leave Lepidus out in the cold where he belongs and Julius' son part of the 2nd Triumvirate, assuming he survives Octavius' overwhelming ambitions.
 
Julius Pompeius Caesar (Random Name) would not be old enough when Caesar died and as such I assume Octavian will just have him taken care of meaning a OTL 2nd Triumvert
 
I'm not sure that the Civil War happens at all in this event. Pompey and Caesar would have a marriage alliance in 49. Pompey would more likely pressure the Senate into allowing Caesar to come to Rome to run for Consul without prosecution in return for certain considerations, like being Consul himself followed by a command in the East to avenge Crassus.
 
I'm not sure that the Civil War happens at all in this event. Pompey and Caesar would have a marriage alliance in 49. Pompey would more likely pressure the Senate into allowing Caesar to come to Rome to run for Consul without prosecution in return for certain considerations, like being Consul himself followed by a command in the East to avenge Crassus.

I agree. But even Julia survived with the child, Pompey could however in 49 decided to not support as historically Caesar's claims, and in the end decided to get involved in the civil war. But maybe he could left Julia and the baby in Rome, because surely Caesar didn't harm them. It can be a interesting POD for a TL...
 
Julius Pompeius Caesar (Random Name) would not be old enough when Caesar died and as such I assume Octavian will just have him taken care of meaning a OTL 2nd Triumvert

Octavian basically inherited his power base from Caesar b/c he was legally Caesar's heir.

That would not be the case in TTL. We might see the Caesarian party divided between those supporting Caesar's legal heir (JPC) vs. Caesar's most able and cleverest relation (Octavian).
 
I don't see why Pompey would not continue to support Caesar against the Optimates in this scenario. His family now appears to be able to dominate the Republic. Pompey is getting old, and while he resents Caesar's increasing prestige, Caesar's male heir is Pompey's own son. In other words, everything Caesar is doing will benefit Pompey's family.

Without Pompey's prestige, influence, loyal troops, and armed gangs, the anti-Caesarian faction will not be able to try Caesar for any crimes. Caesar will be given another consulship and some provinces to rule. He'll have no reason to cross the Rubicon.

The constitutional weakness of the Republic is still present, and it's possible that a civil war might develop later after Pompey and Caesar are dead. But Pompey's family will dominate the Republic. Unless his sons have a falling out, it will be hard for others to challenge them in the short term.

Octavian will not be of importance in this. It was only his rule as Caesar's heir that gave him any chance of exercising power. He won't be Caesar's heir in this scenario. He is clever, and is likely to do well in Roman politics, as Caesar will still support his career. He probably becomes a future consul and later leader of the populares, but nothing more.
 
Well, if Pompey and Julia had had a son and if this son had lived, it is probable that the alliance between Pompey and Caesar, which Caesar had theorized and built in 60 BCE, would have lasted much longer.

I think that Caesar would have asked Pompey to give him this son (Caesar's grandson) as an adoptive son, since Pompey already had 2 grown-up sons (Gnaeus and Sextus). This boy would have then been named Gaius Julius Caesar Pompeianus.

Caesar had very reasonable claims before the civil war burst in 49 BCE. It is only because Pompey had become estranged from Caesar and had begun to see him as a rival that he used the optimates to force Caesar to bow to him. If Julia had lived and had this son, the alliance would have survived and the 2 men would have led the republic until the death of one of them. No possible civil. That's what Cicero foresaw in 56/55 when he wrote that the triumvirate would hold the republic for about 20 years (which was exagerated on the duration as far on the degree of control the triumviri had on the roman political life).

After the death of one of them (Pompey or Caesar, assuming that Crassus still dies in 53), it would havé been a return to "business as usual".
 
Caesar could potentially have married Julia to Octavian (following Pompey's death), posthumously adopting Octavian and providing for his grandson to be adopted by Octavian in turn.
 
Why so if he had adopted his own grandson ?

If Caesar had had a son (his biological grandson by Julia and Pompey), he would not have needed a second one. And in no way would he have adopted Octavius if he had had this grandson/son

And for Pompey's death, I doubt it probably have occured soon, since Pompey was a healthy man when he was murdered in 48. Pompey might well have lived up to the age of 65 or 70, which means up to 41 BCE or 36 BCE.
Julia was born around 77 BCE so she was definitly too old for Octavius who was born in 63 BCE.

This does not mean Octavius had not a bright future. He could have had a prestigious career under the patronage of his great uncle. Being a plebeian noble was not a handicap but an advantage. The competition for the consulship was harder for patricians than for plebeians (since only one patrician could legally be elected whereas 2 plebeians could be elected consuls) and only plebians could be tribunes of the plebs.
Caesar could also have Octavius adopted in a great noble family whose last male adult member had no son : for example by Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus, who was consul in 53 BCE and an ally of Caesar during the civil war.
 
If the grandson was far too young to inherit securely, Octavius might make for a preferable 'interim' heir.
 
I don't think so.

Remember that in reality, Caesar established Pompey as his legal heir from 59 BCE (the marriage with Julia) to the civil war. He made his will public during the civil war in order to prove he had always wanted to remain in good terms with Pompey.

Of course, as any roman noble, Caesar wanted to make sure his lineage would last beyond him. And for this he took the usual "insurance" to which sonless romans resorted : adoption.

However, there were risks against which no insurance could legally, nor even humanly, be subscribed. You could never be sure that a son, be he your biological son or your adoptive son, would live.

There are several examples of famous noble families which extincted although they had sons or had resorted to adoption.

It was the case Lucius Licinius Crassus (not the line of the triumvir), consul in 95 and censor in 95, who had only 2 daughters (one married to Marius the younger, the other married to Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica). Crassus adopted one of his grandsons by Scipio Nasica (this grandson being the brother of the Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica who would be consul in 52). But this grandson/adoptive son died young, after the death of his grandfather/adoptive son, so the lineage got extinct.

There si also the famous example of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus who had 4 sons. He gave 2 by adoption, but his 2 remaining younger sons died before their father, and they died childless.

And Sulla himself, very similar to Caesar in many points except that he was merciless instead of clement, face the situation of dying with only a 7 years-old son left. At that time, there was a great risk that children would not reach adulthood, even in the nobility. Sulla did not try to take adopt another son to prevent extinction : that was an unavoidable risk seen as fatum which everybody was prepared to face.

Well, Octavius had a poor health and nobody would ever had bet that he would live so long.

And if Caesar, in his will, named no other adoptive son in the case his son would die (he just named second rank heirs), I think it's because it was not legally (and understandably) possible to have delayed adoption in your will.

And besides, although the octavian/augustan propaganda strove to make people that Octavian was predestined from even before the craddle, he was not. He was not part of the scheme as long as Pompey and Caesar remained allied. He would have been even less in the WI we're discussing about, with a grandson born from the union of Pompey and Julia.

And even in real history, Octavian was secretly and temporarily adopted only in 45 BCE. Between 48 and 45, there had been an other heir : several scholars astutely guessed it was Caesar's cousin Sextus Julius Caesar (murdered in Syria late in 46 BCE).

So I really see no room as adoptive son for Octavius in this WI. But I can understand that for us, with our difficulties to measure to its full extent the possibilities of alternate histories, it's hard to accept that Augustus' life was all but likely.
 
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