Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

This was, in every sense, what the Rubicon would prove to be. By crossing it, Caesar did indeed engulf the world in war, but he also helped to bring about the ruin of Rome’s ancient freedoms, and the establishment, upon their wreckage, of a monarchy—events of primal significance for the history of the West. Long after the Roman Empire itself had collapsed, the opposites delineated by the Rubicon—liberty and despotism, anarchy and order, republic and autocracy—would continue to haunt the imaginings of Rome’s successors. Narrow and obscure the stream may have been, so insignificant that its very location was ultimately forgotten, yet its name is remembered still. No wonder. So fateful was Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon that it has come to stand for every fateful step taken since.