rewatching HBO's Rome. (which is awesome). Query: does the Roman Empire look any different if Pompey wins? Discuss
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...followed by yet another repeat where the next successful rogue general decides to take his army against Gnaeus Jr., Sextus and the Senate after Pompey is out of the picture. I'm not sure just how many such cycles the Republic could take before it fell apart.
So I suppose I don't think Pompey or his kids had the political genius to set up the empire. Consequently, I think Pompey winning raises the chance of the Roman state just disintegrating (like Alexander's empire) in civil war after civil war.
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The one person we know is thinking hard about how to fix that problem is Cicero, but frankly a reading of his works on the topic doesn't inspire confidence that he had a solution. And I don't see how he would have been in a position to implement it in this case.
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For me the maybe more interesting counter-factual is "Hirtius and/or Pansa survive Mutina." That means the Senate has an army, Octavian pretty much doesn't - consequently the Liberatores probably win. Then it becomes a question - Cicero, Brutus, Cassius...
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ooh. that is possible. Putting individual ability at the center of a crucial turning point in history!
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I really do think Octavian is one of those figures where it is hard to overstate his influence. Sulla, Caesar, Cicero and Pompey really demonstrate the degree to which traditional Roman elite thinking was not well suited to reforming broken systems of government.
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