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 ?