What if Julius Caesar was not assassinated and invaded Parthia?

According to a theory or just a myth, I have read more than once, even from serious authors, Caesar planned to crush the parthian empire, then march via the Caucasus around the Black Sea to Dacia. You know, the Dacians were on his list, too. From there he planned to attack Germania coming from the East. Sounds crazy enough for you?
Well, 'Caesar crossing the lines' doesn't mean he is crazy. At least he is not crazy like eating spiders alive or something. :)

It needs some explanation: his tendency to 'cross the lines':
I mean no Roman before him conquered such a great territory with such big population in the West in one sitting; no Roman built a bridge over the Rhine; no Roman ever crossed "the English Chanel" and landed on the British Isles.
No Roman before him was offered the crown in front of the public.

The things he did were outrageous, unthinkable, nearly impossible. But they were not crazy.
He might get away with them. Though this was damn risky.
That's what I mean by 'crossing the line'.

Is becoming just a 2nd Alexander really thinking big enough for a Caesar always crossing the lines? ... There are more important wars to fight, especially Dacia, which made a lot of trouble lately. Another reason why a longer camapign in the East is not plausible.
Dacia?
Speaking of "crossing the lines"...
Caesar might build the bridge and cross the Danube to scare the shit out of the Dacians. Like he did by invading Germania, burning some villages and proving to everybody who is in charge, and who is afraid of who.
It perfectly worked against the Germanic Suebes, so why not try the same trick against the Dacians?
That won't take much time and can be done before going against Parthia.


Unfortunately even in this crazy scenario, Bactria and India are not reasonable.
Was crossing Rhine or "English Channel" reasonable? - I guess it was definitely scary, risky, spectacular, impressive; but not reasonable.

Crossing the line(s) doesn't necessarily mean conquering Bactria or India.
But crossing the Indus River? Why not? :)
 
We know that Antonius reorganized the East during his triumvirate. He mainly reorganized the territories of the client kings. Excpt Asia and Syria, the entire roman East was ruled by such kings. Well, Antony did some serious mistakes. But there was obviously a need to reorganize the East.

Now imagine, Caesar conquers Mesopotamia. And a bunch of client kings surrounding it. Caesar can't stay, he must take care about Rome asap.

To establish a province of Mesopotamia supervising all these former parthian client kings (Osroene, Media, Susiana, Persis, Characene) is risky. The legate controlling this province gets simply too much power. Furthermore, these client kings would most probably prefer the known King of King model over a roman proconsul in Ctesiphon.

One option might be to implement his 3 year old son Caesarion as the new King of King. Cleoptra moves to Ctesiphon and rules on behalf of her son, supported by some roman legions and loyal legates. Egypt is administered by Caesars legates. This solution is a typical eastern solution. Caesar becomes no "Rex", which is important. But he still has the power. Cleopatra has to stay loyal, because without the support of the legions, these client kings would eat her for breakfast.

I doubt, the senate would moan, that Caesar give roman land as a present, like they did after Antonius' measures. It is fully normal, especially in the East, to not provincialize, but to implement a client king.
 
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We know that Antonius reorganized the East during his triumvirate. He mainly reorganized the territories of the client kings. Excpt Asia and Syria, the entire roman East was ruled by such kings. Well, Antony did some serious mistakes. But there was obviously a need to reorganize the East.

Now imagine, Caesar conquers Mesopotamia. And a bunch of client kings surrounding it. Caesar can't stay, he must take care about Rome asap.

To establish a province of Mesopotamia supervising all these former parthian client kings (Osroene, Media, Susiana, Persis, Characene) is risky. The legate controlling this province gets simply too much power. Furthermore, these client kings would most probably prefer the known King of King model over a roman proconsul in Ctesiphon.

One option might be to implement his 3 year old son Caesarion as the new King of King. Cleoptra moves to Ctesiphon and rules on behalf of her son, supported by some roman legions and loyal legates. Egypt is administered by Caesars legates. This solution is a typical eastern solution. Caesar becomes no "Rex", which is important. But he still has the power. Cleopatra has to stay loyal, because without the support of the legions, these client kings would eat her for breakfast.

I doubt, the senate would moan, that Caesar give roman land as a present, like they did after Antonius' measures. It is fully normal, especially in the East, to not provincialize, but to implement a client king.
If he does this, could Rome gain Armenia as a loyal permanent ally much earlier? Since OTL Armenia wasn't firmly in the Roman camp until the Sassanians took power in Persia.
 
I should also be talked about what happens in Rome while Caesar is away. He's going to be away for years. Conquering Burebista's Dacia first is no small task. Dacia would prove an incredibly difficult foe to fight, and Burebista would no doubt remain in power as long as a threat from Rome remained. His assassination OTL was probably the result of Caesar's assassination removing any threat the ROmans posed to invading Dacia (in this, we can probably see what would have happened to Vercingetorix should he have saw the Romans were no longer a threat to invade Gaul). Then any campaign in the east is going to take at least a year or two, plus another year or two reorganizing the east.


So that's potentialy 5-7 years away from Rome. That's a lot of time for Caesar's enemies (and we know from the assassination plot, that there were still a lot around), to plan another insurrection. Given that Caesar wouldn't have been murdered yet obviously when the insurrection begins, it could be far more bloody-Caesarians in Rome and Italy might find themselves proscribed (a good guideline to how it might go is to see how Cinna operated lacking any effective army when it was apparent that Sulla would come marching home). Things could get bloody indeed.


Another point: The liberatores who assassinated Caesar were not at all delusional for thinking everything would go back to normal once Caesar was gone. This was because they had one historical example of this situation, and that was Sulla. Once Sulla had died and was out of the picture, after a year or two the Senate and institutions of Rome went back to functioning relatively normally. This seemed to be what was happening as well-Antony made peace with the liberatores and a return to normalcy seemed possible until Octavian entered the picture.
 
The roman nobility should also have learned from Sulla, that finally the one, who has the biggest army, will come to Rome and slaughters everybody, who revolted. As long as all legions are controlled by caesarian legates, I don't see how these rebels could control more than Rome. And just until Caesar arrives.

However, men are prone to do stupid, suicidal things. Therefore Caesar has to come back from the East asap, as we already discussed above.
 
The roman nobility should also have learned from Sulla, that finally the one, who has the biggest army, will come to Rome and slaughters everybody, who revolted. As long as all legions are controlled by caesarian legates, I don't see how these rebels could control more than Rome. And just until Caesar arrives.

However, men are prone to do stupid, suicidal things. Therefore Caesar has to come back from the East asap, as we already discussed above.

I am not sure that Caesar has to come back from the East asap.

You know after his victory in Alexandria Caesar spend half a year or so in Egypt leisurely boating the Nile with Cleopatra in outrageous luxury, while Rome was ruled by loyal Antonius (who used to vomit right in the senate after having partied all night).

If you're one of the best generals in the history of the humankind what can bother you?
- Some army gathered by your enemies in the West?
- Well, that's just one more victory for you to and your loyal veteran legions...
 
Would Caesar's invasion of Parthia be good propaganda for his enemies, who would portray him as an eastern despot like Alexander?
 
I should also be talked about what happens in Rome while Caesar is away. He's going to be away for years. Conquering Burebista's Dacia first is no small task. Dacia would prove an incredibly difficult foe to fight, and Burebista would no doubt remain in power as long as a threat from Rome remained. His assassination OTL was probably the result of Caesar's assassination removing any threat the ROmans posed to invading Dacia (in this, we can probably see what would have happened to Vercingetorix should he have saw the Romans were no longer a threat to invade Gaul). Then any campaign in the east is going to take at least a year or two, plus another year or two reorganizing the east.


So that's potentialy 5-7 years away from Rome. That's a lot of time for Caesar's enemies (and we know from the assassination plot, that there were still a lot around), to plan another insurrection. Given that Caesar wouldn't have been murdered yet obviously when the insurrection begins, it could be far more bloody-Caesarians in Rome and Italy might find themselves proscribed (a good guideline to how it might go is to see how Cinna operated lacking any effective army when it was apparent that Sulla would come marching home).
Things could get bloody indeed.


I have one objection. You will need to find a good reason for Caesar staying away from Rome as long as 5-7 years.

OTL, he planned but a 3 years campaign when he was about to move eastwards in the spring of 44 BCE. This is why he had appointed the consuls by anticipation only for the years 44, 43 and 42.

So I don’t deny that his return to Rome may be delayed by one year by unforeseen events. But Caesar was very aware he no longer was a proconsul with an extensive command but the life supreme ruler of Rome and its whole empire.

His plans probably were not aimed at conquering all Dacia and turning it into a province. All the less than the emergency was in Syria more than in Dacia. My guess is that he planned to go to Dacia just for one year just in order to curb Burebista and secure the frontiers of Macedonia and then go against Parthia as early as 43 in order to roll Parthians back and going no farther than Ctesiphon.

If there was a need to continue operations in Dacia, which was of course certain at least in the middle and long run, then he would have entrusted one or several legates with this task. Same thing for Mesopotamia. Once and if part or all of Mesopotamia was snatched away from Parthians, then “peace-keeping” operations would have been entrusted to legates.

And I disagree with the assertion that Cinna lacked any effective army by 85-84. He most of all lacked the finances of eastern provinces that were absolutely vital. And to a lesser extent he even lacked the finances and support of the western provinces since the moderate faction of the Valerii Flacci was holding Spains and Gallia transalpine and since it can be presumed that they had distanced themselves from Cinna and the marians when, in 86, Fimbria murdered his proconsul in the east, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who was the younger brother of western provinces proconsul Gaius Valerius Flaccus. However, Cinna gathered a big army but he did it under such political tensions and financial conditions that part of his troops mutinied against him.

Last point, I disagree too with the fact that Italy could easily rise against Caesar by that time. Caesar solidly held Italy because :
- he was the political heir of marians, cinnans, and the italiani that had fought from 91 to 81 ;
- Caesar’s lasting victory meant that most of the clientelae of the optimates, republicans, pompeians either were destroyed or flocked to the caesarian camp.

It was necessary to have him die in order to have his clients scatter to such new party or such other new party.
 
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