Product Description

In 49 B.C., the seven hundred fifth year since the founding of Rome, Julius Caesar crossed a small border river called the Rubicon and plunged Rome into cataclysmic civil war. Tom Holland’s enthralling account tells the story of Caesar’s generation, witness to the twilight of the Republic and its bloody transformation into an empire. From Cicero, Spartacus, and Brutus, to Cleopatra, Virgil, and Augustus, here are some of the most legendary figures in history brought thrillingly to life. Combining verve and freshness with scrupulous scholarship, Rubicon is not only an engrossing history of this pivotal era but a uniquely resonant portrait of a great civilization in all its extremes of self-sacrifice and rivalry, decadence and catastrophe, intrigue, war, and world-shaking ambition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25342 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-08
• Released on: 2005-03-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

From Publishers Weekly
After a palace coup demolished the reign of King Tarquin of Rome in 509 B.C., a republican government flourished, providing every person an opportunity to participate in political life in the name of liberty. As Holland, a novelist and adapter of Herodotus' Histories for British radio, points out in this lively re-creation of the republic's rise and fall, the seeds of destruction were planted in the very soil in which the early republic flourished. It was more often members of the patrician classes who had the resources to achieve political success. Such implicit class distinctions in an ostensibly classless society also gave rise to a new group of rulers who acted like monarchs. Holland chronicles the rise to power of such leaders as Sulla Felix, Pompey, Cicero and Julius Caesar. Some of these leaders, such as Pompey, appealed to the masses by expanding the republic through military conquest; others, like Cicero, worked to reinforce class distinctions. Holland points to the suppression of the Gracchian revolution-a series of reforms in favor of the poor pushed by the Gracchus brothers in the second century B.C.-as the beginning of the end of the republic, providing the context into which Julius Caesar would step with his own attempts to save the republic. As Holland points out, Caesar actually precipitated civil wars and helped to reestablish an imperial form of government in Rome. With the skill of a good novelist, Holland weaves a rip-roaring tale of political and historical intrigue as he chronicles the lively personalities and problems that led to the end of the Roman republic. Maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Ancient history lives in this vivid chronicle of the tumultuous events that impelled Julius Caesar across the one small river that separated the Roman Republic from cataclysmic civil war. With the narrative talents that have established him as a prominent radio personality and novelist, Holland pulls readers deep into the treacherous riptide of Roman politics. To show how Caesar eventually masters that tide--if only temporarily--Holland first traces the bloody career of the ruthless dictator Sulla, who rescues an imperiled Republic even as he breaches its founding traditions. Those breaches deeply disturb the moralist Cato, but the indulgent luxury of a post-Sullan world suits Caesar well enough: a popular favorite, he sets the fashion in loose-fitting togas--and waits for his fated opening. Recounting Caesar's eventual seizure of power in pages as irresistibly cadenced as the legionnaires' march, Holland probes the tragic ironies that quickly expose the bold conqueror to idealistic assassins, who themselves soon perish in the rise of the Augustan Empire. Not a work for scrupulous scholars, but a richly resonant history for the general reader. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
?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 -- Review

Customer Reviews

The REAL story....
Rubicon, by Tom Holland, gives you the real story, the real history, about how the Republic of Rome fell. The book starts well before the crossing of the Rubicon and ends with the starting of what will be, in the end, the Roman Empire. Like most historical events, nothing happened in a day and many readers will enjoy the chain of events that brought about the major event that we have placed under the sentence - The Fall of the Roman Republic. It is complex, confusing and, in some cases, the details are unknown. When DID Caesar cross the Rubicon? Where IS the Rubicon? What were many of the people thinking, what were their goals, what did they want? We meet Brutus and Cleopatra, Spartacus and Virgil, Cicero and Augustus. Mr. Holland really helped me to understand the history. Those who enjoyed HBO's Rome and the many novels of the Masters of Rome series should pick this book up.

Perils of Republic
Holland does a beautiful job of putting us in the middle of a society long gone. His presentation is lively, readable and, at the same time, let's us feel the humanity and alieness of a civilization like no other. We feel the desperate inevitability of the downward cascade of history. Rome was in the process of growing bloated with territory and wealth. At the same time, the political structure was such that there were inadequate checks and balances to prevent an individual--such as Julius Caesar--from grabbing excessive power.

Despite Caesar's assassination, the Republican egg had already been cracked. At this point the Republic--even if her supporters had succeeded in regaining power--was probably finished. It is altogether possible that the Republican government of Rome simply didn't have the mechanisms to successfully manage a world empire. As it turned out, Imperial Government had even more weaknesses and the downward spiral--at first very slow--that would ultimately doom the Empire started the moment Caesar's army crossed the Rubicon creek.

This is a cautionary tale and, although some of the forces that doomed the Republic, are quite different from those that exist today, other forces are similar. The "mob" is always vulnerable to charismatic leaders who promise "bread and games." We are probably very, very close.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Conquest of Mexico

Hail Rubicon!
While I am somewhat familiar with this era of Roman history, I am by no means an expert. For anyone interested in the late Republican era of Roman history, but who has very little knowledge of it, Rubicon is the perfect introduction.

Written in a fluid, highly detailed narrative, Rubicon reads like a novel. The great exploits of well-known figures such as Julius Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Cato, Mark Antony and Cleopatra are covered along with other, less-well known, but highly important, personalities such as Sulla and Gaius Marius.

While primarily focused on politics, Rubicon also touches upon social and cultural history of the era, which adds much more depth and brings the personalities to life by showing them in their historical context. At the same time, Mr. Holland does a great job helping the reader relate much of all this to our own era. In the person of the Greek philosopher Posidonius, who sees the expansion of Rome - even into his native Greek lands - as a positive thing, one is reminded of many neo-conservative thinkers who see the expansion of American power and dominion as a positive thing for all who it encounters. The diehard Republican Cato, who is a fanatically anti-Caesar stalwart, reminds one of Ron Paul and his libertarian, anti-interventionist views.

Besides the personalities, there is the Publicani, who are among the first to go into a conquered area and establish business ventures, much like modern-day contractors and multi-nationals with strong ties to the government. Rome even had it's own sin city for the upwardly mobile in the form of Baiae, which was like a cross between Las Vegas and St. Tropez, France.

Unlike Holland's other book "Persian Fire," which is pretty much drawn from a single source, i.e. Herodotus, Rubicon is drawn from a wide range of sources. While it is great to read the original writings of ancient authors such as Julius Caesar, Plutarch, Livy, Suetonius, Tacitus and the like, one would have to read a great number of texts in order to get a full account the personalities, culture and politics of this most complex era of Roman history. Rubicon synchronizes all of these into one highly readable account.