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Rubicon: the Last Years of the Roman Republic

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Rubicon

the Last Years of the Roman Republic

By Tom Holland

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Format: Hardback, 408 pages
Other Information: illustrations
Published In: United States, 29 February 2004
A masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of perhaps the greatest civilization ever and the events and people that led to its transformation from a republic to an empire. On a dark January morning, Julius Caesar, the governor of Gaul, rode with his closest aides towards a river named the Rubicon, which marked the line of the frontier with Italy. A governor was forbidden to lead troops out of his allotted province - to break this severest of laws was tantamount to a declaration of civil war. Caesar was a gambler, however. Like the consummate actor on the public stage he had always been, he quoted a line from one of Menander's plays: "It's time to roll the die." Then he ordered the legion behind him to advance, over the river and on towards Rome. Crossing the Rubicon was a step so consequential that it has come to stand for every fateful step in history since. When Caesar rolled his die, the result was indeed a civil war, one that would end up destroying Rome's traditional freedoms and establishing a permanent dictatorship on the wreckage of her constitution. In "Rubicon," Cambridge- and Oxford-educated historian and novelist Tom Holland gives us a harrowing and exciting account of the fall of the Republic, one that begins in 100 BC, the approximate birthdate of the generation that was to bring about the Republic's ruin. He then traces the development of these men into the ruling minds of the Republic, and the occurrence at the Rubicon that marked the end of the expansionism for which they had fought. "Rubicon" captures the suspense and drama of Rome's most famous political rivalries and shows its vibrant and charged atmosphere, all the while featuring some ofthe most celebrated personalities in history-Julius Caesar, Cicero, Spartacus, Cleopatra, Brutus, Pompey, Virgil, and Augustus. As America embarks on its own imperial adventures, "Rubicon" is the chronicle of Rome for which we have all been waiting-carefully researched and wildly compelling.

Reviews

"This is the best one-volume narrative history of Rome between King Tarquin and Emperor Augustus I have ever read. The story of Rome's experiment with republicanism--peopled by such giants as Caesar, Pompey, Cato and Cicero--is told with perfect freshness, fine wit and true scholarship."--Andrew Roberts "Not since Ronald Syme's "The Roman Revolution" has there been such an original and enlivening piece of Roman history. Tom Holland has the rare gift of making deep scholarship accessible and exciting. A brilliant and completely absorbing study."--A.N. Wilson

EAN: 9780385503136
ISBN: 038550313X
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Dimensions: 24 x 16 x 3 centimetres (0.77 kg)
Age Range: 15+ years
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