WI: Stymied Caesar by stirrups

I know that stirrups are sometimes given much more historical importance than they perhaps deserve, but I think in this instance that the invention of stirrups some 10-20ish years prior to Caesar coming into power would have directly prevented the fight between Optimates and Populares since only rich people could have cavalry thereby reducing the power of the masses

What are your thought on how this would butterfly the world ?

Edit: my thinking was along the lines of some lazy cavalry officer inventing the stirrups himself or some kind of fleeing exilee bringing them to Rome somehow...
from there the Optimates would adopt cavalry as their signature symbol and as opposed to infantry for the populares thereby quickening the adoption process.

Edit: I understand that the Optimates and Populares had a certain "fluidity" to them, anyways I wasn't picturing the stirrups as the be all end all solution but more as a "gateway" tech which would lead to basically to an early formation of cataphracts which would be devastating for infantry formations on open fields where Romans usually were victors

Edit: I think it's not much of a stretch to put armor on a horse and give the soldier a lance, and the sabre would surely follow soon after or a "long gladius" since you cant' hack people to death with short swords from atop a horse. Perhaps I'm too much influenced by "scientific" thinking and my knowledge of the, for the Romans, future but I think that the stirrups would be a just a push enough for Romans to use cavalry as their main force.

And thereby weakening the masses political significance and Caesar rise to power. What politician would court people who couldn't help him ?
 
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I know that stirrups are sometime given much more historical importance than they perhaps deserve, but I think in this instance that the invention of stirrups some 10-20ish years prior to Caesar coming into power would have directly prevented the fight between Optimates and populares since only rich people could have cavalry.

The main issue with stirrups's importance, as it happened with heavy plough or horse collar, is that it tends to be viewed by folk history as some sort of super-weapon/super-technology that anyone witnessing it would immediatly adopt and gain a +4 buff vs. non-stirrup cavalry.

The advantage of these, tough, isn't that clearly overwelming : while it's particularily useful for armies that use cavalry as a basic military device (which Romans didn't do), and allows mounted archery to shine in face of mounted javelineers, and it allowed horsemen to balance their weight more efficiently when it comes to swordfight* (or any fight involving one handed weapons); it doesn't seems to have a big added value to lance or spear mounted fighting.

It's basically why Franks, which still had an important cavalry component in their armies, didn't seem to have used stirrups until the IXth century at best, while they were at direct contact with Central European confederacies and Arabs.

Now, how could it be transmitted to Rome? IOTL, the stirrup comes from Asia (it's not clear how far in Asia) and was brought in Europe trough Eurasian peoples (possibly trough northern Iranic peoples as Sarmatians), in societies where horses were not only a common feature but the base for whole parts of a semi-nomadic society.
You'd probably need an earlier appearance of Sarmatians or groups issued from Central Asia going westwards in the IInd or Ist century BCE to get with contact with Romans : basically, making the IInd and Ist centuries worse off when it came to Barbaricum's pressure (think Cimbrii and Teutonii on steroids). It would probably change quite a bit of history, but you'd have room for stirrup being transmitted.

That said, I'm not sure Romans being in contact with stirrup would go with a quick adoption of the feature, and if it would really outweight an earlier pressure in the Danubian limes.

* I would tend to think stirrups, in this case, doesn't as much allow this swordfighting to be efficient, but to make it easier : Gallic cavalry was renowed for his swordmanship, and they had neither saddle or stirrups. It's just, IMO, that stirrups relieve a great part of training necessities and allow efforts to focuses elsewhere.
 
The main issue with stirrups's importance, as it happened with heavy plough or horse collar, is that it tends to be viewed by folk history as some sort of super-weapon/super-technology that anyone witnessing it would immediatly adopt and gain a +4 buff vs. non-stirrup cavalry.

The advantage of these, tough, isn't that clearly overwelming : while it's particularily useful for armies that use cavalry as a basic military device (which Romans didn't do), and allows mounted archery to shine in face of mounted javelineers, and it allowed horsemen to balance their weight more efficiently when it comes to swordfight* (or any fight involving one handed weapons); it doesn't seems to have a big added value to lance or spear mounted fighting.

It's basically why Franks, which still had an important cavalry component in their armies, didn't seem to have used stirrups until the IXth century at best, while they were at direct contact with Central European confederacies and Arabs.

Now, how could it be transmitted to Rome? IOTL, the stirrup comes from Asia (it's not clear how far in Asia) and was brought in Europe trough Eurasian peoples (possibly trough northern Iranic peoples as Sarmatians), in societies where horses were not only a common feature but the base for whole parts of a semi-nomadic society.
You'd probably need an earlier appearance of Sarmatians or groups issued from Central Asia going westwards in the IInd or Ist century BCE to get with contact with Romans : basically, making the IInd and Ist centuries worse off when it came to Barbaricum's pressure (think Cimbrii and Teutonii on steroids). It would probably change quite a bit of history, but you'd have room for stirrup being transmitted.

That said, I'm not sure Romans being in contact with stirrup would go with a quick adoption of the feature, and if it would really outweight an earlier pressure in the Danubian limes.

* I would tend to think stirrups, in this case, doesn't as much allow this swordfighting to be efficient, but to make it easier : Gallic cavalry was renowed for his swordmanship, and they had neither saddle or stirrups. It's just, IMO, that stirrups relieve a great part of training necessities and allow efforts to focuses elsewhere.

good points, my thinking was along the lines of some lazy cavalry officer inventing the stirrups himself or some kind of fleeing exilee bringing them to Rome somehow...
from there the Optimates would adopt cavalry as their signature symbol and as opposed to infantry for the populares thereby quickening the adoption process.
 
good points, my thinking was along the lines of some lazy cavalry officer inventing the stirrups himself
Which, while not outright impossible, would ask for an unprecedented exemple of parallel thinking between a society partially centered on horse as in Central Asia, and someone from a society which doesn't as nearly.

To be honest, I'd rather expect Celts eventually developing it rather than Romans, as they had a more important focus on horses as a military feature. That said, they adopted saddle relatively late, in the late IIIrd century BC : the existence of a strong cavalry among Gallic states seems to appear on par with the development of vergobret and/or confederacies as Aedui or Arverni's, and going with the use of longer, lighter and cutting (rather than pointing) swords. The horned saddle they used was more or less quickly adopted by Romans, so I'd expect that a Gallic stirrup would be pretty much quickly used as well.

That said, you have two issues : first, european horses were significantly shorter than asian and later horses, making the necessity of a better balance less of a basic need; then while I don't think stirrup is in anyway a superweapon, Gallic cavalry was already noticed to be quite a thing (roughly half of Gallic forces during the Gallic Wars) which would probably led to an even greater Celtic mercenaryship in Roman army (and from there, wider adoption), but as well relativly stronger Gallic armies and states.

For that to appear then need to butterfly away, not Roman influence, but Roman conquest and campaigns at least in the IInd and possibly Ist century BC.

or some kind of fleeing exilee bringing them to Rome somehow...
I'm not sure how obvious would it be for a Central Asian exiled to go westwards, rather than more known south where they could find emply as mercenaries or being haboured in a foreign court tough.

from there the Optimates would adopt cavalry as their signature symbol and as opposed to infantry for the populares thereby quickening the adoption process.
I think you're maybe reading too much into the cultural difference between Optimates and Populares : they eventually didn't have that much to do with aristocracy and democrats by Ist century BC : one joined a given side side at some point because it was more politically convenient; and when it ceased to be so, one could change again.
 
Which, while not outright impossible, would ask for an unprecedented exemple of parallel thinking between a society partially centered on horse as in Central Asia, and someone from a society which doesn't as nearly.

To be honest, I'd rather expect Celts eventually developing it rather than Romans, as they had a more important focus on horses as a military feature. That said, they adopted saddle relatively late, in the late IIIrd century BC : the existence of a strong cavalry among Gallic states seems to appear on par with the development of vergobret and/or confederacies as Aedui or Arverni's, and going with the use of longer, lighter and cutting (rather than pointing) swords. The horned saddle they used was more or less quickly adopted by Romans, so I'd expect that a Gallic stirrup would be pretty much quickly used as well.

That said, you have two issues : first, european horses were significantly shorter than asian and later horses, making the necessity of a better balance less of a basic need; then while I don't think stirrup is in anyway a superweapon, Gallic cavalry was already noticed to be quite a thing (roughly half of Gallic forces during the Gallic Wars) which would probably led to an even greater Celtic mercenaryship in Roman army (and from there, wider adoption), but as well relativly stronger Gallic armies and states.

For that to appear then need to butterfly away, not Roman influence, but Roman conquest and campaigns at least in the IInd and possibly Ist century BC.


I'm not sure how obvious would it be for a Central Asian exiled to go westwards, rather than more known south where they could find emply as mercenaries or being haboured in a foreign court tough.


I think you're maybe reading too much into the cultural difference between Optimates and Populares : they eventually didn't have that much to do with aristocracy and democrats by Ist century BC : one joined a given side side at some point because it was more politically convenient; and when it ceased to be so, one could change again.

I understand that the Optimates and Populares had a certain "fluidity" to them, anyways I wasn't picturing the stirrups as the be all end all solution but more as a "gateway" tech which would lead to basically to an early formation of cataphracts.
 
anyways I wasn't picturing the stirrups as the be all end all solution but more as a "gateway" tech which would lead to basically to an early formation of cataphracts.
Cataphracts are more tied with Iranic and steppe influence than stirrups : Roman cataphracts, in Late Antiquity, didn't used these.

The adoption of stirrups by Romans would rather lead to the adoption of which kind of cavalry the peoples they borrowed it had : in the aformentioned exemple of a Gallic stirrup, a Gallic-inspired cavalry (incidentally, pretty much what Caesar had during the Civil Wars, and by "inspired" I mean Gallic auxiliaries).
 
Cataphracts are more tied with Iranic and steppe influence than stirrups : Roman cataphracts, in Late Antiquity, didn't used these.

The adoption of stirrups by Romans would rather lead to the adoption of which kind of cavalry the peoples they borrowed it had : in the aformentioned exemple of a Gallic stirrup, a Gallic-inspired cavalry (incidentally, pretty much what Caesar had during the Civil Wars, and by "inspired" I mean Gallic auxiliaries).

Indeed, but I think it's not much of a stretch to put armor on a horse and give the soldier a lance, and the sabre would surely follow soon after or a "long gladius" since you cant' hack people to death with short swords from atop a horse. Perhaps I'm too much influenced by "scientific" thinking and my knowledge of the, for the Romans, future but I think that the stirrups would be a just a push enough for Romans to use cavalry as their main force.

And thereby weakening the masses political significance and Caesar rise to power. What politician would court people who couldn't help him ?
 
Which, while not outright impossible, would ask for an unprecedented exemple of parallel thinking between a society partially centered on horse as in Central Asia, and someone from a society which doesn't as nearly.

I don't think it does. It's certainly more likely to be invented by a horse-centric culture simply because they spend more time on horseback, increasing the number of people thinking about the problem but there's nothing about the stirrup that is beyond Rome or any other society that uses horses. A stirrup would have nearly as much usefulness to a Roman messenger who spent his life on horseback as it would to a nomad. And Rome certainly had plenty of people who likely spent most of their lives on or around horses.
 
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