Thanks, Moravius, for coming up with some good thoughts! But I can happily agree and/or disagree with bits of it (I'm in a provocative mood, maybe). You wrote,

Would things have been different if there had not been a Civil War? I think if the Senate had agreed to allow Caesar to run for consul in abstentia there would have come an eventual confrontation anyway. The only way that a Civil War would have been avoided would have been if Pompeius had once more allied with Caesar, probably as colleague consuls. The period you look at is when Caesar instituted many of his reforms. Maybe some are too technical to draw much interest for the list. Together with Pompeius he probably could have instituted most of them anyway. One thing that would have been different would have been Rome's involvement with Egypt. Likely that would have fallen into Pompeius' sphere of interest rather than Caesar's. Alone or together, both would still have been long remembered.

I think one could argue this. The more I learn about history, the more I realize how we get stuck in the "hindsight is 20-20" argument. Because we KNOW it happened, it seems inevitable that it HAD to happen.

I don't think that's true, considering all the arguments that the Republic was NOT completely dead, that Pompey did NOT aim to become Dictator, that Caesar - if left to himself - would have wanted only to be Primus Inter Pares, not to wreck the Roman Republic and become notorious for all time.

I think it's possible - POSSIBLE - Pompey and Caesar might have held a joint consulship, pushed through some reforms for their respective armies, and retired in glory to be Princeps Senatus, whatever - or Caesar would have gone off happily to conquer Parthia UNDER the control of a Senate he could work with.