Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

To the Romans, it was the intoxicating quality of power that made it so dangerous. To command the affairs of one’s fellow citizens and to lead them into war, these were awesome responsibilities, capable of turning anybody’s head. After all, what else had the Republic been founded on if not this single great perception—that the taste of kingly authority was addictive and corrupting? Except, of course, that with Rome now the mistress of the world and the arbiter of nations, the authority of her consuls far exceeded any king’s. All the more reason, then, to insist on the checks that had always hedged about their office. And yet—the growing extent of the Republic’s reach confronted the Romans with a dilemma. Now that they were the citizens not of a small city state but of a superpower, the demands on their attention appeared limitless. Wars flared up everywhere. The more distant and intractable the enemy, the greater the logistical demands on the consuls. In extreme circumstances, this left the Senate with little choice but to appoint a magistrate who could take their place, who could be, as the Romans put it, “pro consule.” As the Republic’s empire expanded throughout the second century BC so recourse to proconsuls had become ever more common. By the nature of their duties, they might find themselves campaigning for a period far longer than the conventional single year. Pompey, for instance, had spent five years in Spain. The war was duly won, but not without raising conserva...