WI: Brutus won at Philippi

Brutus couldn't. The POD would have to be Cassius not killing himself. The two halves of the army (like the two halves of the Caesarian army) fought and camped separately, and didn't trust/respect the other commander as much as their own. Hence Brutus had trouble keeping them in line and they eventually forced him to attack, where that half of the army would not have done so with Cassius.

Basically, the liberatores just have to wait it out. If they succeed and the triumvirs are forced to attack or retreat due to supply and food problems, the war is all but won. Or alternatively if Brutus is able to follow up his victory over Octavian's on the first day of battle, and control his troops enough to direct them to roll up on Antony from the flank...then there's your victory.

Lepidus, who was likely already in secret negotiations with Sextus Pompeius in Sicily (or at least that's what the accusations from Octavian and Antony claimed anyway) in case disaster struck Antony and Octavian, and I see no reason why he wouldn't immediately seek some sort of settlement after the destruction of Antony and Octavian's army. Nor would Brutus and Cassius reject it.

I'm not exactly sure how things would go from here. The Republic had went more or less 7-8 years without functioning properly, from the civil war to Philippi, and many of the leading conservative statesmen who had been so instrumental and influential in the years leading up to the civil war, would be dead from the civil war or the proscriptions. So I'm not sure how functional the republic is going to be. Alternatively, there really is nobody who can effectively fill the power vacuum, or at least nobody that can (Brutus, Cassius, Ahenobarbus, Sextus Pompeius), has an interest in doing so.

One thing that will be certain though, is there will be a massive demobilization of forces, and the new Republican government will have the same exact trouble the triumvirs, particularly Octavian, had in settling the veterans in Italy (and they had potentially a much smaller demobilization than would occur here, since they had to keep substantial troops on hand because of their distrust for one another and the need to campaign to gain prestige for themselves). If somebody (maybe Antony's brother Lucius Antonius?) decides to take advantage of the discontent from the veterans for not getting land, and from the farmers displaced by the veterans, they could gain a substantial following from Caesar's veterans...
 
I disagree with Sly.

The funny point is that even if Cassius was dead, Brutus should have won not the battle of Philippi but the campaign if he had been a good general.

His army was well fortified and had all the food reserves it needed to hold for a long time while the army of Anthony and Octavian was not.

Brutus was going to won by starving and atrition of his enemies. But he was not aboe to resist his officers that wanted to fight.

Quite like Pompey at Pharsalus.

So Brutus could have destroyed a 100,000 men army and integrated part of the defeated who would probably have joined him.

Not sure he would have made a sullan come-back in Italy, but he would have been aboe to force a negotiated settlement on very favourable term for himself.
 
I disagree with Sly.

The funny point is that even if Cassius was dead, Brutus should have won not the battle of Philippi but the campaign if he had been a good general.

His army was well fortified and had all the food reserves it needed to hold for a long time while the army of Anthony and Octavian was not.

Brutus was going to won by starving and atrition of his enemies. But he was not aboe to resist his officers that wanted to fight.

Quite like Pompey at Pharsalus.

So Brutus could have destroyed a 100,000 men army and integrated part of the defeated who would probably have joined him.

Not sure he would have made a sullan come-back in Italy, but he would have been aboe to force a negotiated settlement on very favourable term for himself.

Yes, but the problem was Brutus wasn't a good general and Cassius's officers were not as trustful of him as they were of Cassius. Hence Brutus was forced into battle whereas if Cassius and Brutus were both still alive, he wouldn't have been. That's why Brutus couldn't win after the first day imo, because he was always going to be forced into doing what he did (in addition to the other blunders of his, like abandoning Cassius' camp).
 
You are right, of course.

But the point is : let's say that for once in his life, Brutus acte with leadership and ways to his lieutenants and men "I won't make the same trafic mistake than Pompeius. We will fight on our terms, when the enemy is weakened, so that we won a crushing victory with the least possible losses. The enemy is at our mercy if we are smart enough to wait."
 
You are right, of course.

But the point is : let's say that for once in his life, Brutus acte with leadership and ways to his lieutenants and men "I won't make the same trafic mistake than Pompeius. We will fight on our terms, when the enemy is weakened, so that we won a crushing victory with the least possible losses. The enemy is at our mercy if we are smart enough to wait."

Then he runs the serious risk of his men deserting. He just doesn't hold the trust and respect of Cassius's half of the army to be able to stand up to them. They have to believe in him first, like Marius's men already believed in him when he got them to keep waiting and not inopportunely and foolishly attack the Teutones.
 
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