Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

Book Overview

From Tom Holland, co-host of the hit podcast THE REST IS HISTORY, a vivid historical account of the social world of Rome as it moved from republic to empire.

"A fascinating picture of Roman city life. . . . In every aspect of this story, Holland expertly makes the Romans, so alien and yet so familiar, relevant to us." -Los Angeles Times

"Stunning. . . . Holland keeps his narrative moving at chariot-race speed." -Newsday...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400078970
• ISBN13: 9781400078974
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

History as it Should be Written

The Romans were arguably the most remarkable people in history, although having said that the Greeks would certainly give them a run for their money. Therefore it is no wonder that the Roman Republic is without doubt the most written about and who better to do the writing than Tom Holland, a historian who has a string of successful books behind him. This book certainly achieves what I am sure the author set out to do and that is to entertain and inform the reader at the same time, without boring the pants off them. It is a sobering thought that what started out as a small community of people living among the marshes and hills of the area ended up as the greatest city of its time with the might and power to rule the known world. A city that had architects and engineers that could easily hold their own in today's modern world. The book paints a picture of Rome in its finest hour. This was the century of Julius Caesar , a man addicted to both power and glory. A man who crossed the Rubicon in a demonstration of both defiance and power. A time of the great orator Cicero and Spartacus a slave come gladiator who dared to challenge the might of all Rome and briefly, but only briefly glimpsed success. Tom Holland brings to life all of these events and makes the people involved more than just names from long ago. He makes them into living people with likes and dislikes. Lovers of people and things and also the hatred within some of them and the lengths they were prepared to go to achieve their ambitions. A book bursting with the facts of how people lived and loved in the most famous city in the known world and on the other side of the coin the ones who were continually striving to just to survive.

"What use are empty laws without tradition to animate them?"

Rubicon, by Tom Holland, is a detailed and highly readable history of ancient Rome, focused primarily on the years from 133 BC to 31 BC. I've chosen these years because they seem to represent the start and finish of the downfall of the Roman Republic. In 133 BC, Tiberius Gracchus was elected tribune, representative of the plebs, on a platform of land reform. He was murdered that same year by his political opponents. This event set the stage for ever more violent political conflict. Over the next century, Gaius Gracchus, Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, Cato, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and, finally, Octavian (Augustus) Caesar played major roles in the history of the Republic. The era effectively ended at the battle of Actium in 31, BC when Octavian, Julius Caesar' adopted heir, defeated Mark Antony and established himself as sole ruler of the Roman Empire. As part of his portrait of the Roman Republic, Holland brings out several key points: 1. The Republic was founded in 509 BC when the monarch was overthrown. Its government was designed to prevent a future leader from amassing the power of the kings by rigorous separation of power and highly limited terms in office. The paramount leaders were the two Consuls, equal in power and limited to one year in office, each acting as a check on the power of the other. Additional checks on the power of the Consuls were provided by the Tribunes of the Plebs, who exercised a veto over proposed laws, and the Senate. 2. The character of the individual Roman during this era was highly competitive. Each Roman, at least those of the upper classes, strove to advance himself in the eyes of his fellow citizens by moving progressively through a sequence of elective public offices culminating in the Consulship. Since these offices were one-year terms, ambitious politicians often pursued military careers as well, which provided another opportunity to bring glory to Rome (and themselves). 3. Rome accumulated the greater part of its empire while it was a republic, starting with the conquest of Italy. Its victories in its wars with Carthage (264 - 146 BC) left Rome as the undisputed master of the western Mediterranean and set the stage for its gradual conquest of the eastern Mediterranean. Toward the end of the book, Holland quotes the poet Horace: "for what use are empty laws without tradition to animate them?" These words offer the best explanation of the death of the republic that I've found. Rome's "constitution" wasn't written; it was based on accepted customs and shared values, the "mos maiorum", the way of the ancestors. In the century leading to the death of the republic, these accepted customs and shared values lost their power to constrain ambition. The early deviations from custom and shared values were frequently motivated by desires to achieve social and economic reforms. However, under a constitution based on tradition, there wasn't an established path for achieving these goals. Furthermore, t

A fascinating era with parallels to our own

Rubicon is a history of the fall of the Roman Republic that reads like a novel, but seems to be based on pretty sound scholarship. Professional historians may quibble with the style, but this is an excellent overview for the average reader, dealing with a subject that is neglected in the school curriculum but seems very relevant to 21st century America. Starting with a brief runthrough of the early history of Rome, the establishment of the Republic, and the gradual growth of an empire, Hammond gradually focuses in on the last century leading up to Julius Caesar's fateful crossing of the Rubicon and shows the gradual crumbling of values and institutions that allow one brilliant, popular demagogue after another to hijack the government and turn it to his own ends. Pre-emptive wars of "defense" are only one of the tactics that will sound very familiar. I believe that some reviewers have objected to Hammond's use of "anachronisms," but I found this to be an effective, if not always precise, way to convey what was happening. After all, the fact that a name has only recently been given to "spin" doesn't mean that it hasn't been done for millennia. This book's real strength, however, is in its portrayal of a huge cast of living, breathing human beings who grow and change over time. Pompey starts off looking like an obnoxious showoff, but his real love for his wives (which got him laughed at in a society even more macho than 20th century America) and his devotion to the Republic give him an air of tragic pathos. Cato is curmudgeonly but honorable to the end, and Hammond's portrait of Caesar projects a charm and ruthlessness that are both utterly calculated and extremely dangerous. For anyone who wants to learn more about this fascinating era, whose parallels to our own can send chills down the spine, I highly recommend Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series.

Spellbound

The events and characters of Rubicon continue to haunt me weeks after I have read it. Tom Holland is a consummate storyteller. He explores the Roman political scene in all its complexity and renders it not only comprehensible but utterly thrilling. Not only can you not put this book down but it screams to be read again and again. Rivetting stuff!

A riveting panorama of the last great democracy's decline

The Roman republic, the world of SPQR ("Senatus populusque Romanus), has always been for me a set of brightly colored slides, snapshots of highlighted moments in jumbled order: Spartacus' crucified army, Caesar stabbed in the Forum, Cleopatra dying on a barge in Atrium, Hannibal crossing the Alps, Cato and Cicero holding crowds spellbound orating about something or other, net and trident facing spear and shield in the gladiatorial circle. And of course, Caesar returning from long years in Gaul, on the bank of the Rubicon.This compulsively readable book put it all together in one seamless narrative, and replaced my slides with a breathtaking movie that has it all: epic battles, dynastic soap opera, noble patriotism, eyecatching eccentricity, treacherously shifting alliances, scheming and backstabbing and dazzling hypocrisy, with the survival of a great democracy always at stake and always at risk. Holland pumps an incredible quantity of information into your head, with each personage and event so naturally connected to its neighbor that you don't feel surfeited. As a result, every component has the benefit of a richly detailed context. What's best is the confidence with which Holland conveys the ethos of the Republic, which is surprisingly alien, yet has points of analogy with our own. Though plenty of plundering and graft goes on, only one major figure, Crassus, acts mainly out of pecuniary motives. Nevertheless, as our own capitalistic democracy's dynamism has been driven by the relentless competition for scarce monetary resources, the Roman republic derived its energy from a relentless competition for "glory", the scarce commodity of high reputation. The intensity, the near desperation, of that drive pushed the borders of Roman conquest outward, increasing the glory of the state and the welfare of its citizenry. But the competition was a centrifugal force, and as the state enlarged, that force ineluctably grew out of balance with the centripetal forces of community and tradition. Ultimately it would burst through the bounds set by the Roman constitution.The first chapter sets out the history of the first centuries of the Republic, from the overthrow of the king Tarquinius by the first Brutus, through the Carthaginian wars and the murders of the populist Gracchae. The focus grows finer, and the rest of the book deals with the first century B.C. By the time Julius Caesar takes center stage about halfway through, you understand just what is traditional and what is new and nervy about his progress through a sequence of elective offices. He spent years as a brilliant politician, assuming and leaving the severely term-limited highest office of consulship, before he ever set foot in the field as a military commander.Holland views almost all these characters with a dry, urbane humor, never accepting their own rosy conception of their motives. The only ones who come out looking admirable are the crotchety but forthright Cato, the conspirator Brutus,