Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland. Softcover: 464 pages. (New York, NY: Anchor, 2004), Amazon.com $10.20.

Review by Ryan Setliff

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland is an ambitious and bold historic epic about one of the most pivotal times in Roman history since the founding of the Republic.

In the year 49 B.C., some seven-hundred years after the founding of Rome, the appointed dictator Julius Caesar crossed a border river known as the Rubicon and he forever changed history. The refusal of Julius Caesar to abdicate his office along with his forbidden march into the grand city plunged Rome into a cataclysmic civil war. With Caesar's ascent was the death knell of the Republic, and Tom Holland gives a mesmerizing account of the bloody transformation of Rome from a republic to empire. Rome would keep some of its republican strictures, forms and persisted as a Republic if only in name. Julius Caesar inaugurated a new age for Rome-the age of Imperial Rome, which was marked by a succession of demagogues and the occasional philosopher-king. Despite the brief peace during the Pax Romana, war became the new order of the day. Author Tom Holland captures the gritty battles and the political intrigue with amazing clarity and he paints an excellent background history of ancient Rome for the layperson. From Cicero's bold denunciations of the Republic's enemies to Pompey's ambitious machinations to the bold gambit of Cato, this is a spellbinding narrative history of Rome in the century before Christ.

This nifty little tome is rich in imagery and vivid reminiscences of Roman mythology. Holland has crafted a masterful history of Rome, an era which marked the demise of the republic and the rise of empire. Tom Holland has really invigorated the limited number of classical sources such as Cicero, Pliny, Polybius, and Suetonius and brought them to life in a lively, modern, readable narrative history.