A Surviving Roman Republic

I'm sure that this has been asked before, but just out curiosity, what is the latest possible P.O.D. for a Roman Republic that survives at least into the second century C.E., and butterflies away the Principate?

What would be some of the major effects of this?

I stand by the Gracchus brothers being the absolute latest opportunity to outright save the republic. While, technically, it's perfectly possible for the right person to rise into the place that Caesar did and engage in the right kind of reform to save the republic, I find it highly unlikely..

Well Crassus and Pompey started dismanteling the sullan constitution after his Death. At that point its very late, but to be it could be saved up untile Ceasar.

You are completely right that this ought to be a standard topic of AH, but
actually I haven't seen it often here.

I don't make a statement about latest PoD, but a very likely and plausible turn of events is Caesar's defeat in the early 40s BC. (The military reasons for that are yet to be made up.) This _could_ lead to a very persistent republic (2nd century is a good perspective you chose). Of course, it could sink as well after another generation.

Jaded_Railman said:

I stand by the Gracchus brothers being the absolute latest opportunity to outright save the republic. While, technically, it's perfectly possible for the right person to rise into the place that Caesar did and engage in the right kind of reform to save the republic, I find it highly unlikely..

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I was also thinking maybe a more successful tribunate of M. Livius Drusus in the late second and early first centuries B.C. Perhaps he is not assassinated after all, and his reforms on Italian citizenship are forced through, averting the social wars?
No Sulla or Marius would butterfly away much of the precedent for a military strongman seizing the reins of government.
And, most interestingly, it's Post-Gracchi.

What does everyone think?

Have the Senate institute the Marian reforms themselves. With pay funded by the Senate as a body, the Legions loyalty would be to the Senate as a body instead of individual generals. Perhaps create a Senate Praetorian Legion that actually guards the SPQR. Deliberately and specifically base them out of the Pomerium (whereas other Legions were prohibited). Some system of rotating the Proconsular commands could work too.

Some way to defeat the Optimates intransigence against the Novus Homo could help, too. Caesar's ideas on expanded the Senate could work, too. Could also quiet or effectively give the Socii what they want, at the same time.

I don't remember just now whether or not the Marian reforms meant that soldiers were payed by the state, in which case their salaries were payed by the Senate anyway.

I think another idea could be to have tours of duties for soldiers: instead of having them stick with the same general for years and years, have some rotation, so that loyalty doesn't have as much time to build.

Endymion said:

I was also thinking maybe a more successful tribunate of M. Livius Drusus in the late second and early first centuries B.C. Perhaps he is not assassinated after all, and his reforms on Italian citizenship are forced through, averting the social wars?
No Sulla or Marius would butterfly away much of the precedent for a military strongman seizing the reins of government.
And, most interestingly, it's Post-Gracchi.

What does everyone think?

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An excellent, and quite plausible and realistic idea. Marcus Livius Drusus is the ideal candidate for for a Republican reformer. Not only was he an eminent and distinguished member of the optimate senatorial faction, but he was also a moderate and reformist politician, who enjoyed the backing of the most august and staunchly conservative senators, among them the princeps senatus Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, and could consequently not to be mistaken for a rogue popularis radical in the vein of the Gracchi or Publius Clodius. In fact, a triumph for moderate conservatives like Livius Drusus might well forestall the division of the Senate into the two violently opposing extremists camps of optimates and populares that arose after the Marian coup d’état and the first Sullan “march on Rome” in 87 BC, and it would also reduce the increasing trend towards blatant political violence. It would also go some way to halting the increasing power of the military dynasts during and after the Social War by placing a greater authority and prestige in the hands of the Senate, in lieu of its granting full citizenship rights to the Italian socii.

However, I do not believe there is any conceivable way to make the Roman Republic last until the 2nd century AD. I tend to take Sir Ronald Syme’s view that the Republic was essentially a body unsuited to the government of a large empire, possessed as it was of of the politics and institutions of a city-state.
　

minifidel said:

I don't remember just now whether or not the Marian reforms meant that soldiers were payed by the state, in which case their salaries were payed by the Senate anyway.

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Effectively, their pay came from their general, who also saw to his veterans' retirement/land award, thus also got their loyalty, instead of the state, which was far more abstract to the average Legionary.

I think another idea could be to have tours of duties for soldiers: instead of having them stick with the same general for years and years, have some rotation, so that loyalty doesn't have as much time to build.

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Eh, terms in the Legions were roughly 20 years IIRC and they got their land award after that if their general fought for it enough to hope it was a fight strong enough to not be placed in some far away hostile land they had just been part of conquering.

Boto von Ageduch said:

I don't make a statement about latest PoD, but a very likely and plausible turn of events is Caesar's defeat in the early 40s BC. (The military reasons for that are yet to be made up.) This _could_ lead to a very persistent republic (2nd century is a good perspective you chose). Of course, it could sink as well after another generation.

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Pompey wins. Whether right after Dyrrhacion, or at Pharsalus, or shortly after declining Pharsalus.

What next?