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Description

as requested by HeliosMegistos :

After Caesar dies Rome gradually slips into total chaos with both Octavian and Antony both dying in the power struggles that come and no capable successor filling the void in power. So the Republic gradually breaks up as various governors and military leaders start to carve out their own personal kingdoms and such with Italy itself becoming a rump Republic that continues to be wracked by the infighting and instability epidemic to the late republic.

In Egypt Cleopatra VII has long since passed on and been succeeded by her son with Julius Caesar, Caesarion.

I followed the most probable course of events from the PoD, and though it is not exactly what he asked for, I think it is close enough.

So here is the Roman Republic dissolved (or technically broken and continued in a different place. Like how the Byzantines still called themselves "Romans".)

PoD: 21st of April, 43 BC

After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome erupted into all-out chaos, as factions devolved into smaller factions over varying ideas, and those smaller factions devolving into even smaller ones as the events unfolded. On the forefront of it all were four main "factions", though these were not unified in any sense:
-The Liberatores, who desired to return to the republic as it once was, and who were also the faction who had killed Caesar.
-The Antonian Caesarians, who wanted to continue Caesar's work and punish the Liberatores, as well as push Mark Antony forward as the main successor of Julius Caesar, based mainly on their close relationship and Antony's previous experiences as Magister Equitum (master of horses, and second in command to Caesar).
-The Octavian Caesarians, who wished to follow Caesar's last wishes and follow his posthumously adopted son Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, as they regarded Antony as trying to subvert Octavian and steal his vast inheritance.
-The Senate, who tried to play the three other greater factions against each other, and hoping to regain the full control of the Roman Republic for themselves once the dust had settled.

With Mark Antony's consulship of 44 BC ending, and thereby making him a potential subject to prosecution, he tried to get a favourable proconsulship in Gaul, which he had helped Caesar conquer. However, this governorship was already given to Decimus Brutus, brother of the more famous Marcus Brutus, and also one of the Liberatores. When Decimus refused to give it up, Antony mustered his army and marched north to take it by force.

The senate sent Octavian, along with the two new consuls, Aulus Hirtius and Vibius Pansa, to stop Antony.

Antony had Decimus Brutus besieged in Mutina, but as he heard about the approaching army, he rode out and attacked Pansa in the Battle of Forum Gallorum, where Pansa was mortally wounded. The Octavian army was saved at the last moment by Hirtius and Octavian himself, as they led the reinforcements to the field. Seven days later, Hirtius and Octavian attacked Antony's camp at what would later be known as the Battle of Mutina, on the 21st of April, 43 BC.

As the dust of the battle cleared, however, two commanders lay dead, instead of one as in OTL: while the battle was raging outside the camps, the consul Hirtius took the bold decision to break directly into the camp of Antony with some of his forces. The consul then personally led the Legio III into the camp, making directly for Mark Antony's personal tent. At first, Hirtius' action appeared successful: the Legio III, after breaking through, fought near Antony's tent; the consul led the legionaries on the frontline; meanwhile, the battle continued in other areas as well. Soon, however, the situation deteriorated for the troops that had beset the camps. Mark Antony's Legio V, which defended the camp, opposed the Legio III, and after an awkward and bloody melee managed to halt its advance, protecting their commander's tent.

As the Legio III began to fold under the Antonian counterattack, other troops led by Caesar Octavian came to their relief. Caesar's young heir found himself in the midst of the fiercest clashes and fought violently. He was badly wounded by a pilum that pierced his armour, and even though his loyal troops pulled him out of the melee, he eventually succumbed to his wounds.

Enraged by the death of their hero, the soldiers of the Legio III thrust forward with new vigour, and overwhelmed Antony's Legio V, killing the commander in the fight.

That evening, an only slightly wounded Hirtius walked to his dying fellow consul Pansa, and relayed him the message of the deaths of Caesar's two heirs. As well as the message that Antony's second-in-command Lepidus had managed to flee to Gaul.

The senate now tried to eliminate the rest of the Caesarian forces, by assigning command of the fleet to Sextus Pompey, son of former Triumvir Pompey the Great, at his base in Sicily; giving command of the Caesarian army to Decimus; and by granting governorships in the east to Brutus and Cassius.

However, the Caesarian army flat out refused to follow orders from one of Caesar's very murderers, and in late 43 BC, Hirtius marched on Rome, and forced the Senate to elect him the sole consul for next year, effectively giving him the same power Caesar had during the end of his life.

By this point, the end was near for all those with eyes to see. In Rome, Hirtius allied himself with two of Caesar's minor heirs, Quintus Pedius and Lucius Pinarius, forming the Second Triumvirate.

Brutus and Cassius raised an army to defend the Republic, but they were met by Hirtius and Pinarius at Dyrrachium. This battle meant the death of Brutus, and left the Liberatores' army under the main command of Cassius, who retreated to Macedonia.

With Hirtius and Pinarius in the east, the Senatorial faction tried one last time to overthrow the Hirtian faction and eject Pedius from the city, and Pedius retreated to Asculum to gather his forces from Northern Italy. The Senate gathered their own forces, financed from the great wealth their ancient families possessed, under the leadership of the great orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. But ere they had amassed their full legions, they received news of Hirtius' victory at Dyrrachium. Their time was up. So they called upon Sextus Pompey and his fleet, as they themselves marched to the south, hoping to stop Hirtius before he could set foot on Italian soil.

But Sextus Pompey didn't come.

With the few ships at their disposal, most of them only confiscated and quickly altered fishing ships, they tried to face the victorious legion of Hirtius at the battle of Brundisium. What was supposed to be a crushing defeat for Hirtius before he could land in Italy, became a crushing defeat for the Senatores, before they could retreat to Italy.

And with that, with two victories on either side of the Adriatic, Hirtius was victorious. He rode into Rome at the head of his proud legion, receiving a grand triumph, was named Imperator for his victories, and in 42 BC he was elected Dictator Perpetuo by a now mostly symbolic senate, cleansed of opponents by the Second Triumvirate during the proscriptions of 43 BC.

And thus, by 42 BC, the Roman Republic had in effect seized to be. Gaul was under the control of Lepidus, though as the province had only been fully conquered for a mere seven years, it quickly decreased in size, until it only encompassed what Lepidus could hold with his 25,000 men. After his mysterious death in 32 BC, he was buried as "Imperator Gallico", and succeeded as such by his son Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Minor, also called Lepidus Secondus, who managed to organise his realm from his headquarters in Lugdunum, reasserting his control over the lands all the way to the mouths of the rivers Liger and Sequana.

A campaign from one of Hirtius' top generals, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, in 27 BC resulted in a peace treaty which recognised the Dictator Perpetuo in Rome as the nominal superior of the Imperator in Gaul, though only in theory. More critically, it established a border between the two war-weary provinces. Enough for peace to settle in after what seemed like a century of constant war.

In 18 BC, Aulus Hirtius, Dictator Perpetuo of Rome, then well into his 70's, inspected the troops in front of his new dictatorial palace, when he suddenly stopped. Ancient sources say that he gripped his heart, before turning to his men, smiling. He lay a trembling hand on Agrippa's shoulder and said, loud enough for his troops to clearly hear: "capax imperii", "worthy of being emperor". Then his eyes turned to the skies, and as an eagle flew over and cried "Aulus", the man who had lead and ruled Italy and Hispania for 24 years, collapsed.

He was buried and deified within the month, in a wonderful display of Roman glory. At the end of the ceremony, Agrippa was declared to have been adopted by his dying predecessor and he was declared Aulus Hirtius Vipsanianus Agrippa, the new Doctator Perpetuo and Imperator of Rome, Italy, and Hispania.

In the south of the former Roman Republic, Sextus Pompey adopted the title of "Magister Navium Marisque", "Master of Ships and the Sea", as he expands his direct control from just Sicily, to Sardinia and Corsica, the Baleares, Creta, and even parts of the old province of Africa.

In the east, Cassius set up a new capitol at Thessalonike, and within two years, all those of the old Senatorial faction who had managed to flee the proscriptions of Hirtius' Second Triumvirate had gathered there. On the city's Akropolis, they raised a new Curia to house their restored Senate, and in 41 BC, when Cassius refused to be elected consul again, they elected him Princeps senatus, an honorary position as first speaker of the senate.

With the Roman Republic collapsing, and many of its fringe territories starting to rule themselves without actually going through the effort and potential war of declaring formal independence, the surrounding nations lost Rome as the stabilising factor it once was. In Asia Minor, near de borders with the Parthian empire, many minor states switched back and forth between allegiance to the new Macedonian Romans and the Parthians, but before their dynastic instabilities were properly settled, the new Roman Republic had enough forces to stabilise the Parthian advance into Syria. However, Publius Ventidius Bassus, the newly elected governor of Syria and once a supporter of Antony who had fled east after the Battle of Mutina, managed to establish a strong grip over the province, and have the Macedonian Senate renew his term for an extended period, effectively turning him from a provincial consul into a prince in his own realm, and in 33 BC he took the title of "Dux Orientis", or "Leader of the East", as it became clear that the new Roman Republic was not yet strong enough to oppose such an action with more than words. At least, not during his lifetime.

And to the south, Cleopatra VII continued to reign until a revolt broke out in 20 BC, led by her son Ptolemy XV, also known as Caesarion. Though the then 27 year old man was the very son of Gaius Julius Caesar, he did not claim anything beyond the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, instead following the long tradition of Ptolemaic kings and queens of revolting and killing their predecessors. With the aid of some Parthian troops, he ascended the throne as Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, taking a daughter of King Phraates IV of Parthia as his wife.

==========================

Rulers:

Imperium Gallico (Gaul):
42-32 BC, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Imperator Gallico
32-.. BC, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Minor [Lepidus Secundus], Imperator Gallico

Imperium Romanus (Rome, Italy, and Hispania):
42-18 BC, Aulus Hirtius, Dictator Perpetuo
18-.. BC, Aulus Hirtius Vipsanianus Agrippa, Dictator Perpetuo Imperatorque Romanus

Magistrum Pompeia (Sicily and the Mediterranean Sea):
42-.. BC, Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius, Magister Navium Marisque

Senatus Populusque Romanus (Macedonia):
42-.. BC, SPQR in Thessalonike

Syria:
39-33 BC, Publius Ventidius Bassus, Proconsul Syriae
33-.. BC, Publius Ventidius Bassus, Dux Orientis

Ptolemaike Basileia (Egypt):
51-20 BC, Cleopatra VII Philopator, Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt
20-.. BC, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, Pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt

Description

as requested by HeliosMegistos :

After Caesar dies Rome gradually slips into total chaos with both Octavian and Antony both dying in the power struggles that come and no capable successor filling the void in power. So the Republic gradually breaks up as various governors and military leaders start to carve out their own personal kingdoms and such with Italy itself becoming a rump Republic that continues to be wracked by the infighting and instability epidemic to the late republic.

In Egypt Cleopatra VII has long since passed on and been succeeded by her son with Julius Caesar, Caesarion.

I followed the most probable course of events from the PoD, and though it is not exactly what he asked for, I think it is close enough.

So here is the Roman Republic dissolved (or technically broken and continued in a different place. Like how the Byzantines still called themselves "Romans".)

PoD: 21st of April, 43 BC

After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome erupted into all-out chaos, as factions devolved into smaller factions over varying ideas, and those smaller factions devolving into even smaller ones as the events unfolded. On the forefront of it all were four main "factions", though these were not unified in any sense:
-The Liberatores, who desired to return to the republic as it once was, and who were also the faction who had killed Caesar.
-The Antonian Caesarians, who wanted to continue Caesar's work and punish the Liberatores, as well as push Mark Antony forward as the main successor of Julius Caesar, based mainly on their close relationship and Antony's previous experiences as Magister Equitum (master of horses, and second in command to Caesar).
-The Octavian Caesarians, who wished to follow Caesar's last wishes and follow his posthumously adopted son Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, as they regarded Antony as trying to subvert Octavian and steal his vast inheritance.
-The Senate, who tried to play the three other greater factions against each other, and hoping to regain the full control of the Roman Republic for themselves once the dust had settled.

With Mark Antony's consulship of 44 BC ending, and thereby making him a potential subject to prosecution, he tried to get a favourable proconsulship in Gaul, which he had helped Caesar conquer. However, this governorship was already given to Decimus Brutus, brother of the more famous Marcus Brutus, and also one of the Liberatores. When Decimus refused to give it up, Antony mustered his army and marched north to take it by force.

The senate sent Octavian, along with the two new consuls, Aulus Hirtius and Vibius Pansa, to stop Antony.

Antony had Decimus Brutus besieged in Mutina, but as he heard about the approaching army, he rode out and attacked Pansa in the Battle of Forum Gallorum, where Pansa was mortally wounded. The Octavian army was saved at the last moment by Hirtius and Octavian himself, as they led the reinforcements to the field. Seven days later, Hirtius and Octavian attacked Antony's camp at what would later be known as the Battle of Mutina, on the 21st of April, 43 BC.

As the dust of the battle cleared, however, two commanders lay dead, instead of one as in OTL: while the battle was raging outside the camps, the consul Hirtius took the bold decision to break directly into the camp of Antony with some of his forces. The consul then personally led the Legio III into the camp, making directly for Mark Antony's personal tent. At first, Hirtius' action appeared successful: the Legio III, after breaking through, fought near Antony's tent; the consul led the legionaries on the frontline; meanwhile, the battle continued in other areas as well. Soon, however, the situation deteriorated for the troops that had beset the camps. Mark Antony's Legio V, which defended the camp, opposed the Legio III, and after an awkward and bloody melee managed to halt its advance, protecting their commander's tent.

As the Legio III began to fold under the Antonian counterattack, other troops led by Caesar Octavian came to their relief. Caesar's young heir found himself in the midst of the fiercest clashes and fought violently. He was badly wounded by a pilum that pierced his armour, and even though his loyal troops pulled him out of the melee, he eventually succumbed to his wounds.

Enraged by the death of their hero, the soldiers of the Legio III thrust forward with new vigour, and overwhelmed Antony's Legio V, killing the commander in the fight.

That evening, an only slightly wounded Hirtius walked to his dying fellow consul Pansa, and relayed him the message of the deaths of Caesar's two heirs. As well as the message that Antony's second-in-command Lepidus had managed to flee to Gaul.

The senate now tried to eliminate the rest of the Caesarian forces, by assigning command of the fleet to Sextus Pompey, son of former Triumvir Pompey the Great, at his base in Sicily; giving command of the Caesarian army to Decimus; and by granting governorships in the east to Brutus and Cassius.

However, the Caesarian army flat out refused to follow orders from one of Caesar's very murderers, and in late 43 BC, Hirtius marched on Rome, and forced the Senate to elect him the sole consul for next year, effectively giving him the same power Caesar had during the end of his life.

By this point, the end was near for all those with eyes to see. In Rome, Hirtius allied himself with two of Caesar's minor heirs, Quintus Pedius and Lucius Pinarius, forming the Second Triumvirate.

Brutus and Cassius raised an army to defend the Republic, but they were met by Hirtius and Pinarius at Dyrrachium. This battle meant the death of Brutus, and left the Liberatores' army under the main command of Cassius, who retreated to Macedonia.

With Hirtius and Pinarius in the east, the Senatorial faction tried one last time to overthrow the Hirtian faction and eject Pedius from the city, and Pedius retreated to Asculum to gather his forces from Northern Italy. The Senate gathered their own forces, financed from the great wealth their ancient families possessed, under the leadership of the great orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. But ere they had amassed their full legions, they received news of Hirtius' victory at Dyrrachium. Their time was up. So they called upon Sextus Pompey and his fleet, as they themselves marched to the south, hoping to stop Hirtius before he could set foot on Italian soil.

But Sextus Pompey didn't come.

With the few ships at their disposal, most of them only confiscated and quickly altered fishing ships, they tried to face the victorious legion of Hirtius at the battle of Brundisium. What was supposed to be a crushing defeat for Hirtius before he could land in Italy, became a crushing defeat for the Senatores, before they could retreat to Italy.

And with that, with two victories on either side of the Adriatic, Hirtius was victorious. He rode into Rome at the head of his proud legion, receiving a grand triumph, was named Imperator for his victories, and in 42 BC he was elected Dictator Perpetuo by a now mostly symbolic senate, cleansed of opponents by the Second Triumvirate during the proscriptions of 43 BC.

And thus, by 42 BC, the Roman Republic had in effect seized to be. Gaul was under the control of Lepidus, though as the province had only been fully conquered for a mere seven years, it quickly decreased in size, until it only encompassed what Lepidus could hold with his 25,000 men. After his mysterious death in 32 BC, he was buried as "Imperator Gallico", and succeeded as such by his son Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Minor, also called Lepidus Secondus, who managed to organise his realm from his headquarters in Lugdunum, reasserting his control over the lands all the way to the mouths of the rivers Liger and Sequana.

A campaign from one of Hirtius' top generals, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, in 27 BC resulted in a peace treaty which recognised the Dictator Perpetuo in Rome as the nominal superior of the Imperator in Gaul, though only in theory. More critically, it established a border between the two war-weary provinces. Enough for peace to settle in after what seemed like a century of constant war.

In 18 BC, Aulus Hirtius, Dictator Perpetuo of Rome, then well into his 70's, inspected the troops in front of his new dictatorial palace, when he suddenly stopped. Ancient sources say that he gripped his heart, before turning to his men, smiling. He lay a trembling hand on Agrippa's shoulder and said, loud enough for his troops to clearly hear: "capax imperii", "worthy of being emperor". Then his eyes turned to the skies, and as an eagle flew over and cried "Aulus", the man who had lead and ruled Italy and Hispania for 24 years, collapsed.

He was buried and deified within the month, in a wonderful display of Roman glory. At the end of the ceremony, Agrippa was declared to have been adopted by his dying predecessor and he was declared Aulus Hirtius Vipsanianus Agrippa, the new Doctator Perpetuo and Imperator of Rome, Italy, and Hispania.

In the south of the former Roman Republic, Sextus Pompey adopted the title of "Magister Navium Marisque", "Master of Ships and the Sea", as he expands his direct control from just Sicily, to Sardinia and Corsica, the Baleares, Creta, and even parts of the old province of Africa.

In the east, Cassius set up a new capitol at Thessalonike, and within two years, all those of the old Senatorial faction who had managed to flee the proscriptions of Hirtius' Second Triumvirate had gathered there. On the city's Akropolis, they raised a new Curia to house their restored Senate, and in 41 BC, when Cassius refused to be elected consul again, they elected him Princeps senatus, an honorary position as first speaker of the senate.

With the Roman Republic collapsing, and many of its fringe territories starting to rule themselves without actually going through the effort and potential war of declaring formal independence, the surrounding nations lost Rome as the stabilising factor it once was. In Asia Minor, near de borders with the Parthian empire, many minor states switched back and forth between allegiance to the new Macedonian Romans and the Parthians, but before their dynastic instabilities were properly settled, the new Roman Republic had enough forces to stabilise the Parthian advance into Syria. However, Publius Ventidius Bassus, the newly elected governor of Syria and once a supporter of Antony who had fled east after the Battle of Mutina, managed to establish a strong grip over the province, and have the Macedonian Senate renew his term for an extended period, effectively turning him from a provincial consul into a prince in his own realm, and in 33 BC he took the title of "Dux Orientis", or "Leader of the East", as it became clear that the new Roman Republic was not yet strong enough to oppose such an action with more than words. At least, not during his lifetime.

And to the south, Cleopatra VII continued to reign until a revolt broke out in 20 BC, led by her son Ptolemy XV, also known as Caesarion. Though the then 27 year old man was the very son of Gaius Julius Caesar, he did not claim anything beyond the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, instead following the long tradition of Ptolemaic kings and queens of revolting and killing their predecessors. With the aid of some Parthian troops, he ascended the throne as Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, taking a daughter of King Phraates IV of Parthia as his wife.

==========================

Rulers:

Imperium Gallico (Gaul):
42-32 BC, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Imperator Gallico
32-.. BC, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus Minor [Lepidus Secundus], Imperator Gallico

Imperium Romanus (Rome, Italy, and Hispania):
42-18 BC, Aulus Hirtius, Dictator Perpetuo
18-.. BC, Aulus Hirtius Vipsanianus Agrippa, Dictator Perpetuo Imperatorque Romanus

Magistrum Pompeia (Sicily and the Mediterranean Sea):
42-.. BC, Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius, Magister Navium Marisque

Senatus Populusque Romanus (Macedonia):
42-.. BC, SPQR in Thessalonike

Syria:
39-33 BC, Publius Ventidius Bassus, Proconsul Syriae
33-.. BC, Publius Ventidius Bassus, Dux Orientis

Ptolemaike Basileia (Egypt):
51-20 BC, Cleopatra VII Philopator, Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt
20-.. BC, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, Pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt