What happens if Caesar gets himself some bodyguards who fight off his assassins?
Does he go East to fight the Parthians? Does Rome stay loyal to him when he is gone?
What if he loses to the Parthians?
Does he afterall accept the title "Rex" and become absolute leader? Would he have completely abolished the senate or kept it as it was already becoming, a rubber-stamp institution?
I will try to answer these questions as best I can, mostly based of the Lecture I recently got done with from my Latin class, which, thankfully, we also learn about Roman history in as well.
1) Caesar had bodyguards, the Lictors. They followed him everywhere and he had plenty of them at his house. However, pre-assassination, many people did see him moving over to "tyrant," so, he ordered his Lictors to stay away, kind of as a gesture of faith towards the people of Rome, something to do with "A Freeman who walks among other Free people has nothing to fear," he wanted to show the Roman people that he was their equal, no worse, no better. Had he brought his Lictors with him to that meeting with the Senators, they probably would have all been caught and executed or possibly have aborted the assassination, seeing it would fail out right and plan to try to assassinate him another day.
2) He would have. Caesar had already prepared a massive, three year campaign that he would leave for at the end of March. He would subjugate the Parthians, move north, through modern day Ukraine, and end up trying to conquer Germania. Would he have succeeded or ended up like his buddy Crassus and be sipping molten gold at the force of Parthian captors? We'll never know.
3) See last statement.
4) He eventually would have. Caesar was a power hungry leader and if he could have become the sole ruler of the Republic, he would have taken it. However, he probably would not have used the title "Rex" (Latin for King, btw) as Rome has had a bad history with Rexs, he probably would have liked to take a different title, "Dictator for Life," maybe "Emperor," as his adopted son and grand nephew will a few decades after his death. Its not a question of whether or not he would abolish the Senate, he couldn't have. The Senate had been part of Rome since the earliest days of the Republic, its Senators were the oldest, wisest, and, in many cases, richest men in Rome. While Caesar was probably one of, if not the finest military commander of the classical era, but he would not be able to hold off ALL of the Senators of Rome, who could hire Rome's enemies to overthrow Caesar. He would accept his title as ruler of Rome, but he would have to keep the Senate intact, the best he could do is limit its power. Overtime, however, he and his successors could force the Senate into the same power it had during the Empire, basically there for show.
