Antiochus the Great decisively defeats the Romans at Magnesia

A) What kind of different tactics would it require than the ones that happend historically for his army to decisively defeat the Romans?
B) What would be the effects/results and differences in the timeline from this event?
 
Antiochos winning at Magnesia is very easy. There are a number of ways, or a combination of any of them. The most obvious would be to have Antiochos exploit his shattering of the Roman flank and instead of getting wrapped up in the moment and charging for the Roman camp, and instead plunge into the Roman flank. That would be all she wrote for the Roman army and it would be annihilated.

Another way is to change up his deployment. Get rid of the scythed chariots, whose charge on the opposite flank only confused the Seleucid cavalry and let the Pergamese cavalry sweep them from the field. And/Or have Antiochos not deploy his elephants between his phalanx, and instead deploy it in reserve-this was used to great effect by Seleucus at Ipsus and Pyrrhus against the Romans, but deploying the elephants in between the phalanx doomed the phalanx when they tried an orderly withdrawal.


So what are the effects of this decisive victory? Well the Romans would sue for peace. It is interesting that both sides were actually very reluctant to go to war, and I think at least for a time, a balance of power can be achieved, Antiochos controlling Anatolia and the Romans Greece. Antiochos historically left the Seleucid Empire in a much better state than he found it, and now its in an even better state. He (and Antiochos IV) are free to focus on Egypt and if not conquer (Im not sure they intended on conquering Egypt as much as they intended to keep a puppet on the throne or reduce Egypt to a rump state much like the Ptolemies and Romans did to the Seleucids).
 
The Roman army apparently consisted of more cohesive units with better system of command and control. Antiochus' army had a good core, the phalanx, and some of his cavalry was of very good quality. But his army was much more disparate in its origins and like an Achaemenid Persian army, must have been very interesting to communicate and coordinate units from many different lands and tongues.
Although the Cataphracts had an initially devastating effect on the Romans, the latter eventually deployed its reserve cavalry en masse to rout the spent Cataphract assault. This action rendered the Seleucid Phalanx vulnerable on its flank and the final routing of Antiochus.
The Romans exhibited excellent use of combined arms and good improvised tactical deployments in the right place at the right time. It seems that a good proportion of Antiochus' army didn't get into combat (at least not until they routed) and their superior elephants (Asiatic vs. the Roman's African) were a non-factor except at the end where they stampeded (due to Roman missile fire--peltests, archers,etc.), inflicting much disorder among the Seleucid formations.
So what could Antiochus have done differently? He had chosen the battleground, apparently carefully. But his deployment of his mixed army was questionable --the Elephants spread between Phalanx formations, the use of the chariots to initiate the first assault, among his miscalculations. I have doubts that Antiochus turning into the Roman flank instead of attacking the camp would have in-and-of-itself been decisive. The Roman formations and reserves may have proven too flexible for that. I will say that we have few surviving "primary" sources for the battle. The accounts by Livy and Appian seem to account for what we know and both write of it many years after the event.

Although both sides were initially reluctant to go to war, once Antiochus' vanguard was defeated at Thermopylae and the Roman's had crossed the Hellespont, it was the Seleucids who tried to negotiate and the Romans demanding that Antiochus surrender most of Asia Minor---tantamount to ensuring that some final battle was inevitable.

If Antiochus has won, essentially what Slydessertfox concludes, although I think it would be a temporary state of affairs. The Romans, were after all, historically, very sore losers... ;)
 
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Although both sides were initially reluctant to go to war, once Antiochus' vanguard was defeated at Thermopylae and the Roman's had crossed the Hellespont, it was the Seleucids who tried to negotiate and the Romans demanding that Antiochus surrender most of Asia Minor---tantamount to ensuring that some final battle was inevitable.

If Antiochus has won, essentially what Slydessertfox concludes, although I think it would be a temporary state of affairs. The Romans, were after all, historically, very sore losers... ;)


IIRC, that was just Lucius Scipio's call. He wanted credit for a victory over Antiochos IIRC. Also, the Romans were capable of reognizing a balance of power-they did so with the Parthians and if they get crushed one or twice, they'll relent.
 
IIRC, that was just Lucius Scipio's call. He wanted credit for a victory over Antiochos IIRC. Also, the Romans were capable of reognizing a balance of power-they did so with the Parthians and if they get crushed one or twice, they'll relent.

Re. the Parthians: Tell that to Trajan. At best you get a transient "peace" and a temporary frontier punctuated by periods of significant warfare.
 
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