04-25-2013, 11:10 PM
Caesar was collecting a force of 16 legions and 10000 cavalry (described as Gallic and Spanish) for his Parthian campaign (he did not field 15000 cavalry at Alesia, the number is never specified except for 400 German cavalry). A formidable force far superior to Crassus' 7 legions plus axuiliaries. According to Goldsworth's book Caesar, he was actively collecting all the information he could on Parthian tactics prior to the campaign. Caesar's experience at Ruspina and Thapsus against Numidian cavalry might be a good indicator of how the Parthian campaign may have fared. Ruspina was a hard fought battle which Labienus' Numidian cavalry, using tactics very similar to Parthian horse archers, nearly won. Caesar gained the victory but lost perhaps as much as 1/3 of his force (but note that the Pompeian forces far outnumbered his). This could indicate that his Parthian battles could be equally bloody OR that given his experience against those type of missile armed cavalry tactics that he might do better having learned his lesson in North Africa. I'm intrigued that Caesar did not come to the conclusion that Numidian cavalry were probably the best available counter to the Parthian horse archers. His experience fighting them should have made him conclude that they could be formidable adversaries to the Parthian horse archers (In Trajan's campaign a unit of Moorish cavalry - ethnically similar or identical to Numidians - gained a reputation of being his most effective horsemen against Parthian horse archers). Although it can be argued that the future successful Parthian campaigns by Roman commanders were against a declining Parthian kingdom and that in Caesar's time Parthia was at its zenith I don't doubt that Caesar would eventually conquer at the very least the western satrapies of the kingdom. Given his political and economic acumen he may also potentially find a way to integrate and keep them as new Roman provinces. It is clear from Rome's later experience that these lands could never be kept Roman merely by the force of the sword. Of course that is hindsight which Caesar would not have in his time. In all likelihood Caesar's potential conquest of Parthia would probably be more temporary than Alexander's conquest of the area and I doubt that there would be any Romanization of the lands comparable to the Hellenization they experienced after Alexander's conquests (due to the many Greek colonies he left in the wake of his advance). Even though Caesar would face the same challenges Octavian faced providing lands for the mass of discharged veterans of the 60 legions + mobilized by both sides it is doubtful that such potential colonies could have Romanized the area. Older Roman colonies in the eastern provinces (western Anatolia) had themselves been almost completely Hellenized and a similar fate would probably face any potential colonies Caesar might establish.
