Caesar won, and the Republic quickly became an autocratic dictatorship. Several historians note the lapse of time between Crassus' death and the outbreak of civil war. Gaius Stern has claimed that Crassus' death nearly cut the links the First Triumvirate enjoyed with the blue-blooded aristocracy, leaving the entire state vulnerable to the friction that eventually turned into civil war.[43] Thus, an immediate effect of the battle may have been the elimination of certain private checks and balances (e.g. Crassus' relationship to Metellus Pius Scipio) that formerly kept a lid on political tensions.