WI Brutus and Cassius Win Decisive Victory at Phillipi?

Anaxagoras

Banned
In reading accounts of the Battle of Philippi, it is pretty clear that it was touch-and-go for awhile and that victory could have gone to either side. Suppose that the outcome had been reversed, and that the republican forces of Brutus and Cassius had triumphed over the triumvir forces of Antony and Octavian? Assume also that Antony and Octavian are either killed or (as Brutus and Cassius did IOTL) commit suicide?

What then?

Lepidus is still in control of Italy with a few triumvir legions, and the governors of the Western provinces are men who were loyal to Antony. But the east is firmly under republican control, and Sextus Pompey and his fleet pretty much control the seas. Indeed, the triumvir fleet had suffered a heavy defeat in the Adriatic right before the Battle(s) of Philippi had begun. If the main triumvir army has been defeated and the republican forces easily able to transport their men to Italy, it seems to me that Lepidus wouldn't have lasted long.

The Senate (what was left of it) was pretty much on the fence and I think would have swung back quickly to Brutus and Cassius the moment they arrived in Italy with a few legions.
 
Why do you think that? It's not like Brutus and Cassius would have to take their entire army to Italy to deal with Lepidus.
They wouldn't have had Ventidius Bassus, though, and numerically the situation in the East is prima facie going to be worse for them than it was for the successful triumvirs.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
They wouldn't have had Ventidius Bassus, though, and numerically the situation in the East is prima facie going to be worse for them than it was for the successful triumvirs.

Cassius himself had demonstrated considerable military skill against the Parthians. Perhaps he might hold the East while Brutus and the other republicans settled matters in Italy. And I'm not sure why the Romans would be at a greater numerical disadvantage ITTL vis-a-vis OTL. Why do you think this would be?

Cleopatra isn't about to ally herself with the killers of Caesar so I see a Parthian/Egyptian alliance in the East.

Cleopatra will do whatever is in her immediate interest, I would think.
 
Cleopatra will do whatever is in her immediate interest, I would think.

The senators that killed Caesar would view her and more importantly her son as Augustus did as a threat that can not be allowed to live.

She would know it and they would know it.
 
And then Brutus and Cassius promptly lose the Levant and at least half of Anatolia to Labienus, Pacorus, and their Parthians.
Sir, your facts appear to be gravely mistaken.

Q. Labienus ‘Parthicus imperator’ was himself of Optimate sympathies and had served as a tribune in the staff of the Liberatores C. Cassius Longinus and M. Iunius Brutus, before his dispatch prior to the battle of Philippi as the Liberator ambassador to the Aršakid court of king Ur
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ū[/FONT]d . Certainly there is no evidence the Q. Labienus had thrown his lot in with the Parthians and was operating independently prior to the disastrous defeat at Philippi and the onset of the proscriptions.

Actually I had read somewhere that the Parthians were allied to the Liberators. . .
Quite so.

There is also little doubt that the Aršakid court was broadly sympathetic to the Liberatores: a Parthian contingent fought under the rebellious anti-Cæsarian Pompeian eques and de-facto proconsul of Syria Q. Cæcilius Bassus during his revolt in Apameia, and later passed into the hands of the Liberator C. Cassius following his assumption of the proconsulate of Syria. C. Cassius and the Liberators maintained cordial and amicable relations with the court of king Ur[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ū[/FONT]d, and contingents of around four thousand cavalry and horse archers from Parthia, Media and Arabia had also fought under the Liberatores at Philippi
 
I imagine that even if they won at Philippi and took Roma unless Brutus and Cassius seriously and quickly overhauled the government to ensure the events that occurred would never happen again that in time another Caesar or another Octavian would merely come along and make their victory moot.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I imagine that even if they won at Philippi and took Roma unless Brutus and Cassius seriously and quickly overhauled the government to ensure the events that occurred would never happen again that in time another Caesar or another Octavian would merely come along and make their victory moot.

I agree. Before Caesar, after all, there had been Marius and Sulla. IOTL, it took the authoritarian rule of Augustus to bring stability. ITTL, could the defeat of the triumvirs by the representatives of the old guard somehow result in a new constitutional settlement that would finally end the wars? Or would it have just lead to yet another round of chaotic civil wars?
 
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