Oh, that might. The empire actually did disintegrate a few times. But not for too long.Could all that infighting eventually lead to disintegration of the empire instead a successful move to autocracy as in OTL?
The probability of it's permanent long time disintegration is extremely low - less than 1%. The Romans liked their country united.
And our POD (no Caesar) doesn't change the Roman mentality.
Why do you think Crassus went off on this Parthian expedition?Which doesn't really matter unless Crassus goes off on a Parthian expedition or equivalent.
Because Crassus realized one simple thing - he desperately needed fresh military fame(glory) and a vast pool of Roman soldiers loyal and faithfull personally to him as their general who led them to victory.
Without it Crassus had no chances to win in the coming struggle for power in the Roman Empire.
Well in my opinion in this ATL Pompey -is- the Pompey equivalentThey did OTL precisely because Pompey was an alternative to Caesar, if Pompey -is- the Caesar equivalent then they would not do it.
And in the second part Pompey is the Octavian Augustus equivalent (they are actually very similar).