Alternative outcomes of the Social War

not that the social war (any of them) had even the slightest to do with what 2 millienia later would be coined socialism
 
The Italian one.


I still like the idea of a confederation of city states founded on a concept of liberty and equality.
To all intents and purposes that is probably what the Latins and the Romans thought the result was. The Latins got Roman citizenship for the cities if they hadn't revolted and even if they had they could get individual citizenship. Of course the concept of liberty and equality was only between males with a certain personal wealth although citizenship offered a certain minimum protection.
 
I still like the idea of a confederation of city states founded on a concept of liberty and equality.

That's not really what was on the cards during the Social War, though, at least assuming you're using the terms as they're normally used in modern political discourse. The Allies may have been fighting to free themselves from Rome (although we're not actually certain what their aims were -- the revolt might just have been an attempt to force the Romans to give them citizenship), but they had no desire to change the status of the individuals living in their states. (Compare the South during the American Civil War -- they wanted to free their states from the Northern-dominated Union, but they most emphatically did not want to free the individuals living in those states.)
 
The best outcome for the Italians is they get better citizenship. Rather than the Romans tricking them into agreeing to be stuffed into inconsequential tribes, they realize the ploy and demand their own new tribes to vote in. Or have the Marians, backed by what remained of the Italian forces, win the civil war and you also might be able to get that outcome.
 
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