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Jan 18, 2009

Mark rated it:

I recently finished reading Rubicon by Tom Holland, which tells the historical tale of the Roman Republic from it's inception until its ultimate demolition at the hands of Augustus, when the Republic was formally and forever transmuted into the Roman Empire. A rich and highly engrossing read, it primarily focuses on the Republic after the rise of the great generals who, through foreign conquest, and the unprecedented wealth and prestige it bestowed upon them, became such formidable power brokers More...

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Aug 08, 2011

Juan-Pablo rated it:

This historical period is so fascinating that writing a History that reads like a novel doesn't sound like a big deal. But were many provide dry accounts, Holland excels with his sterling prose. Even if you already know the story, this book will give you new insights and a fast paced account of the Roman Republic that is always fun to read.

The narrative is structured in a zoom in/out fashion. The author quickly covers in the first part of the book from the beginnings of the republic u More...

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Aug 05, 2010

jeand99 rated it:

On August 3th I finished reading for the second time Tom Holland's book 'Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic'. I wanted to find out why Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. The river Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy proper to the south. Any Roman general was by law of the Roman Republic (509 - 44 BC) obliged to disband his army before crossing the Rubicon. Otherwise both he and his men were guilty of More...

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Feb 27, 2010

John rated it:

Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic

I picked up this book on a recommendation from Goodreads.com from a list of “best history books”. Since I’ve never read much about Rome before, and the book had a cool title (Rubicon it turns out is the name of a river) I decided to check it out.

The one thing I’ve learned about great history books is that they have superb writers. (I'm talking about history books that look like slightly oversized hardcover novels, not More...

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Aug 16, 2009

Scott rated it:

Holland's book is one of the best on the topic. It is both very well researched (and his use of quotes from classical sources is exceptionally helpful) and very readable to a general audience. What makes his book unique is that it is not a biography of individuals but the story of the republican system, its people, and its descent into collapse. As he says in his introduction, it is a story about citizens in Rome and what they lost politically in the last century BC/BCE.

Much of Ho More...

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Jan 31, 2010

Curtis rated it:

Rubicon is Holland's account of the collapse of the Roman Republic. I enjoyed Persian Fire so I was interested to read his work on Rome. I was bored with this one pretty quickly, but decided to stick with it for 100 pages because many reviewers seem to enjoy it.

I can see why some like the book. It tells the story of some of the most important characters of the classical world. Many reviewers write that the last third of the book is the most exciting, but I couldn't get through the fi More...

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Feb 11, 2011

Chris rated it:

The Good: Holland has an impressive understanding of Ancient Rome and the institutions of the Republic. What's more, this understanding was apparently acquired under the influence of a passionate enthusiasm for all things related to the Mistress of the Mediterranean; and this, combined with his novelist's skills and grasp of language, allows him to whip through the centuries without ever getting hung-up upon minutiae or buried beneath the weight of the various personalities who boldly and energe More...

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Jan 13, 2011

Ed rated it:

The era of the fall of the Roman Republic has not had the press that the fall of the empire has received - at least not in recent centuries. Holland's volume is a very good introduction to that fascinating historical period. The narrative advances at a good pace, the characters are sharply drawn, and complicated events and currents are clearly explicated. Some readers have complained that Holland omits critical parts of the story and invents other parts. But Holland anticipated these critici More...

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Oct 23, 2009

Cindiloohoo rated it:

Interesting history but somewhat overly dramatic and revisionistic, in my opinion. Reads at times more like a Harold Robbins novel. It makes me sad when people write books that do nothing but disparage every single thing of which they are writing about. It became tedious toward the end. For a better picture of the "scandalous" goings on in Rome at around that time, I would suggest Suetonious instead. Further, while I am no great Cicero fan I hardly think the portrayal of him in More...

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Nov 02, 2011

GoldGato rated it:

I crossed the Rubicon with this book, hoping it would be a glorious history of Rome and its last days as a Republic, before the Empire began. It is a decent retelling of basic history but really nothing too stalwart. Given the cast of characters and the swirling battles from the days of Tarquin to Caesar, there should be an elevation of prose and heightened enlightenment, but it reads as a thesis from a college student. The book is meant to be popular history for those who don't know Romulus and More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Steve rated it:

An excellent popular history read. This is the first book I'd read by Tom Holland, and I also knew very little about Ancient Rome. The book is about the Roman Republic, mostly the last 50 years of the Roman Republic, 100BC to 50BC (roughly). It reads somewhat like a novel - it's certainly a page turner. The author, as he indicates at the beginning, makes hardly any mention of sources etc in the main text - these are mainly endnotes and the occasional footnotes - which aids the narrative flow. I More...

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Jul 15, 2011

Ann rated it:

This book has a great hook in the first paragraph - a general standing at the Rubicon, about to cross. Then you have to wait until the end of the book and all else is history leading up to that point. It is hard to follow because Holland jumps around from period to period rather than a straight chronology, so it would help to know this history before reading the book, but he has a dry wit and not many historians will express their humor. Beware, it is very bloody. Gosh, I like a slaughter n More...

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May 10, 2010

Margaret rated it:

Rubicon is an entertaining narrative history of the breakdown of the Roman Republic, from Sulla, Marius, and the Gracchi down to Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian. It's skillfully written, witty, and highly readable, with excellent narrative drive and characterization which make it as easy to read as a novel.

Holland is sometimes careful to specify where he's speculating due to lack of evidence, sometimes not, and he uses quotations from sources like Suetonius without making it clear More...

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Dec 08, 2010

Anngela rated it:

Rubicon is a very enjoyable narrative history covering the last 400 years of the Roman republic. The story moves along at a good pace and kept me engaged. I read it last month while traveling to and from Utah for my son's wedding. Generally speaking I wouldn't undertake a historical or political text under those conditions as I'd have to start and stop at perhaps inconvenient times in the narrative. Not so with this, it was easy to pick up and become engaged without having to reread to pick up More...

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Jun 19, 2011

Toby rated it:

Simply terrific. One of the greatest stories ever told, with surely the greatest cast of characters: Pompey the Great, Crassus, Cicero, Cato, Caesar, and so many other are wonderfully brought to life by Holland's riveting narrative. Most engrossing is the period between the death of Sulla in 89BC and Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49BC, and it's this extraordinary period that the author devotes the most time to, carefully laying out all the scheming and machinations that led the Republic in More...

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Nov 30, 2011

Kelly rated it:

"Our parents generation, worse than their parents',
Has given birth to us, worse yet - and soon
We will have children still more depraved."

I don't think any other words can sum up human history so well, nor can explain the turbulent history of Rome with such simplicity. Tom Holland's Rubicon is an excellent example of an accessible and entertaining narrative that still provides the richness and depth of knowledge expected from such an intense topic as Rome and th More...

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Oct 17, 2010

Steven rated it:

A literate work on the decline and fall of the Roman Republic. Why did the Republic fail? How did a new system, of emperors, replace it? This volume makes the effort to tell that story. It begins with Caesar deciding to take his troops across the Rubicon, a small river of little consequence. With that step, he ushered in the end of the Republic. But the seeds for its demise had been planted long before. The story considers key personalities--Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato, Caesar, More...

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Feb 12, 2010

Daniel rated it:

Rubicon tells the story about the Roman Republic from the beginning to its demise at the hands of Octavian. Most of the book is dedicated to the latter half of the Republic, but a significant portion of the book is spent explaining traditions and the Roman psyche. Unlike most historical books, Rubicon is not told in a dry and unfeeling tone. Instead, the author makes the book read very conversationally. Because of this, Rubicon is easy to read, yet filled with useful information. While read More...

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Nov 04, 2009

Robert rated it:

This was an interesting character based narrative about the last 180 odd years of the Republic. It does not spend any time on the military side except to note the scope of the battles, the victors and the consequences.

It's focus was primarily on the political, economic, personality and cultural forces that interacted to give birth to the empire.

Twas quite easy to read and was in many ways a bit of a page turner, and as such was leaving a tremendous amount of material ou More...

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Jun 17, 2011

Matt rated it:

Interesting novel on what happened before the rise of Julius Caesar. Layman's history of Rome tends to be limited to telling us that two guys founded Rome (Romulus and Remus), they had a republic where some stuff happened, but then (poof) came the age of empire that history emphasizes. Obviously, imperial Rome left an enormous mark, but it is nice to read something that actually tries to present what the Republic was actually about. He makes a subtle but interesting point that Caesar was symp More...

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Jul 27, 2010

Sam rated it:

Rome wasn’t built in a day; nor was it destroyed in a day. In Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland traces Rome’s slow descent from austere Republic to dictatorship, beginning with the legendary general Marius and progressing through his successors in the first century BC, providing gripping and very human presentations of figures such as Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Cato, Cicero, and more. Despite its title, this book does not introduce Julius Caesar until the last 100 pages, an More...

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Jul 31, 2009

Paul rated it:

Ever since loving movies like "Ben Hur" and "The Robe" as a kid, I've been curious about the Roman empire. Until "Rubicon," I've never found a book that brought this incredible saga to life. Holland combines a scholarly background with a highly readable, dramatic, moving, even quite funny book.

All those larger-than-life characters from your history class -- Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Cato, Cleopatra and Antony -- leap (or, in Cleopatra's case, kind of sli More...

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Jun 15, 2009

Rob rated it:

While I was initially skeptical at the notion of narrative history this was a great book. I know next to nothing about Roman history but this book was very accessible and takes the reader through the fall of the Roman republic. I get the feeling that the seeds of Rome's undoing were in it from the beginning and that once the idealism and nostalgia for a shared narrative stopped being enough to pen in those who sought glory not for its own sake but for the power that came with it it would collaps More...

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Apr 29, 2008

Ryan rated it:

"Rubicon" was an interesting and easily readable history of the last several decades of the Roman Republic, before Julius Caesar and Octavian/Augustus turned the republic into an empire. For as much as I've heard the names of the players (Caesar, Pompey, Antony, Octavian, etc) it was stimulating to learn the stories behind them for the first time. It was also my first introduction to other actors, from Cato and Cicero, to Crassus and Clodius. Rich in history, vivid in description, I co More...

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Mar 03, 2011

Quinn rated it:

Entertaining retelling of the events that brought down an established republic, fraught with parallels to today. Witness corporate interests fuel imperialism and political corruption, and power hungry men destroy republican ideals under a mantle of patriotism. Holland is an amiable narrator who makes satisfying choices with the vast and often conflicting material left over by the ancients. The book serves as a reminder how fragile even an established free society can be, and in doing so, ta More...

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Jun 05, 2007

Siria rated it:

I am of two minds about this book. There is no denying that as an overview of the final years of the Roman Republic, running from roughly the time of the Social War to the establishment of the principate, it's a fine achievement. Holland takes events which have been recounted many times over the last two thousand years or so, and makes them fresh and interesting, even to someone like myself who has read of them more times than I care to think about. There is a great sense of narrative verve and More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Kevin rated it:

Not as bad as the book on Babylon. In fact fairly readable but pretty poor language and at times decidedly lax. This is the book on the Romans - from Republic to the establishment of Augustus if you are the person that enjoyed the utter crud that was the BBC's 'Rome' series. Shagging, murders and a bit of history. You just know that this bloke Holland could do it a lot better than this but has set out to make a shitpile of money writing the stuff like he has. This guy isn't really a historian is More...

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Apr 18, 2011

Joe rated it:

If you watched the HBO series, ROME, and liked it, you will find this book to offer the "Rest of the story". The HBO show is less dramatic than the real story, which you will find in Rubicon. If you ever heard the expression that uses the word "rubicon" to describe a life changing even -- it is based on Julius Ceaser's decision to commit treason by crossing the Rubicon river into Rome with his soldiers. What proceeded this event and followed this momentous crossing it the More...

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Feb 23, 2010

Alex rated it:

Some people call Tom Holland a crappy pop historian. The issue here is that for many historical events, there are questions about veracity or motive or what really went down. Guys like Holland will take the most exciting of the possible truths and go with that; thus, Nero put Christians in cages and set them on fire to use as streetlights. That's probably not true, but it makes a fun story. Keep that in mind if you read Holland; but he's basically got his shit together. It's not that big a More...

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Sep 16, 2011

Charlie rated it:

Covers the politics and players of ancient Rome from the 80sBC to AD 14 from Sullus to Augustus. I started several times and quit but one day it grabbed me and I was spellbound and read every chance I got until I finished it. Excellent research. Most struck by how identical our republic is repeating history all too accurately. the games are exactly the same and the strategies just a vicious and merciless. As well, class distinctions are getting just as severe between the haves and have nots.

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