WI: No Sulla

@isabella,
Take away a Populares leader and another one will emerge. Their name is a clue here: oligarchic rule without concessions to the masses was not, well, popular. (Understandably.)
Likewise, the violent counter-reaction is also structurally determined even without Sulla. His personal biography really notwithstanding.

Avoiding what I associate with Sulla's tyranny cannot be reached by removing Marius or preventing cases against sulla's family. It needs avoiding the class wars, and that requires more consensual reforms decades earlier.
 
@isabella,
Take away a Populares leader and another one will emerge. Their name is a clue here: oligarchic rule without concessions to the masses was not, well, popular. (Understandably.)
Likewise, the violent counter-reaction is also structurally determined even without Sulla. His personal biography really notwithstanding.

Avoiding what I associate with Sulla's tyranny cannot be reached by removing Marius or preventing cases against sulla's family. It needs avoiding the class wars, and that requires more consensual reforms decades earlier.


Ok... so what if Sulla survives to get the eastern command, but loses the Battle of Chaeronea completely? Where do we go from here? Will the Romans be able to take back the east? I imagine they would certainly try...
 
Ok... so what if Sulla survives to get the eastern command, but loses the Battle of Chaeronea completely? Where do we go from here? Will the Romans be able to take back the east? I imagine they would certainly try...
They would definitely try. How stable would mithridates' super-empire be... is one key question here.

How much turmoil will the Republic suffer in the next decades without Sulla? Either way, even OTL's Chaos didn't keep them from conquering lots and lots more.

But that outcome would certainly render the Republic less internally mutilated, but externally less strong by quite a bit.
 
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