What If: Cinna defeats Sulla in the Civil war

What it says above. What happens if Sulla is comprehensively beaten.

Are we thinking after Sulla has pulled off his stunning victories against Mithradates, the snake-charming "Poison King", and secured Greece? That's kind of a tall order, if you ask me. However, one of my proposals for a timeline on this forum before I was assigned my current project Not My Heifer (coming soon) by the votes was if Sulla had lost the Battle of Chaeronea, which is totally feasible, cuz it's actually pretty damn incredible that he pulled it off, and then Orchomenus afterward. From here, things could be very interesting indeed.
 
Probably an earlier collapse of the Republic. ITTL men like Pompey and Cicero will have grown up in a world nakedly dominated by power politics without the pretense to republicanism that Sulla tried to uphold. Crassus probably wouldn't be as rich as he was IOTL since a lot of his wealth came from buying the property of the victims of Sulla's proscriptions, but he'd still be a force to reckon with. After Cinna dies, Marius Minor and whomever else emerges from the ashes of the optimates will duke it out, and then their children will duke it out, etc. Probably a much darker and bloodier 1st century BCE with either a total collapse of order in Europe or a slightly more brazen Roman Empire without the republican veneer that Augustus was so careful to uphold
 
Are we thinking after Sulla has pulled off his stunning victories against Mithradates, the snake-charming "Poison King", and secured Greece? That's kind of a tall order, if you ask me. However, one of my proposals for a timeline on this forum before I was assigned my current project Not My Heifer (coming soon) by the votes was if Sulla had lost the Battle of Chaeronea, which is totally feasible, cuz it's actually pretty damn incredible that he pulled it off, and then Orchomenus afterward. From here, things could be very interesting indeed.

He could fall off his horse and die, the point is the after .
 
Probably an earlier collapse of the Republic. ITTL men like Pompey and Cicero will have grown up in a world nakedly dominated by power politics without the pretense to republicanism that Sulla tried to uphold. Crassus probably wouldn't be as rich as he was IOTL since a lot of his wealth came from buying the property of the victims of Sulla's proscriptions, but he'd still be a force to reckon with. After Cinna dies, Marius Minor and whomever else emerges from the ashes of the optimates will duke it out, and then their children will duke it out, etc. Probably a much darker and bloodier 1st century BCE with either a total collapse of order in Europe or a slightly more brazen Roman Empire without the republican veneer that Augustus was so careful to uphold

Sullas conception of republicanism was in itself deeply complicit in the collapse or the republic. The cinnan coalition represented a far more serious way forward in attempting to deal with the decay of Republican institutions in Rome.
 
Sullas conception of republicanism was in itself deeply complicit in the collapse or the republic. The cinnan coalition represented a far more serious way forward in attempting to deal with the decay of Republican institutions in Rome.

Well yeah, I think every powerful man in Rome during the 1st century BCE was at least somewhat complicit in the fall of the Republic. But what did the leading coalition of Cinna possess that made him uniquely able to address the underlying structural problems of the Republic? If anything, Cinna was just as blatant in his disregard for the rule of law. He led a march on Rome, sacked the city, rigged consular elections, and killed his political rivals. Which part of that resume indicates to you that he would in any way address the decay of republican institutions?
 
Well yeah, I think every powerful man in Rome during the 1st century BCE was at least somewhat complicit in the fall of the Republic. But what did the leading coalition of Cinna possess that made him uniquely able to address the underlying structural problems of the Republic? If anything, Cinna was just as blatant in his disregard for the rule of law. He led a march on Rome, sacked the city, rigged consular elections, and killed his political rivals. Which part of that resume indicates to you that he would in any way address the decay of republican institutions?

Becuase its not a matter of powerful people using violence in exclusion. It’s also a matter of how Sulla reformed republican institutions and the political interests represented by Sulla, and the interests and reforms which were put forward by the Cinnan faction. I think its ultimately just moralism that makes it about powerful men exercising force over the republic rather than the dominance of the senate in the Roman constitutional system being the most significant decaying influence on the Roman republic.
 
Becuase its not a matter of powerful people using violence in exclusion. It’s also a matter of how Sulla reformed republican institutions and the political interests represented by Sulla, and the interests and reforms which were put forward by the Cinnan faction. I think its ultimately just moralism that makes it about powerful men exercising force over the republic rather than the dominance of the senate in the Roman constitutional system being the most significant decaying influence on the Roman republic.

Why was the dominance of the senate a decaying institution? If anything, the senate was the foundation of the Republican order (since it existed since even before the Republic), and actually authored the Twelve Tables. The matter of powerful people using violence was just the push that got the ball rolling to destroy the Republic, and it was the ultimate lack of checks and balances and respect for the rule of law that finally put the last nail in the Republic's coffin. What significant reforms did Cinna put forward that make him a better captain of state in your view?
 
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