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Rubicon Paperback – March 8, 2005

by Tom Holland (Author)

2,803

Part of: Rubicon (1 books)

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A vivid historical account of the social world of Rome as it moved from republic to empire. 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.

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Part of series

Rubicon
Print length

464 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Anchor
Publication date

March 8, 2005
Dimensions

5.18 x 0.91 x 7.96 inches
ISBN-10

1400078970
ISBN-13

978-1400078974
Lexile measure

1140L
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4.6 out of 5

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It reads more like an adventure novel than a book on history

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2016

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In this book, Holland does a marvelous job of taking the reader through not only what happened in @ the last 100 years of the republic as a real Roman state, but also what was going on in the minds of its principal actors in the process. History is a peculiar thing. It usually seeks only to tell what happened and who did it, and maybe why, but Holland has taken the admittedly risky tactic of taking the reader into the minds of the principal actors in a way that is refreshing and, in my opinion, fascinating and very much illustrative of what made Rome, Rome. It brings into sharp focus how the values and ethics (what there was of them) shaped the republic, and eventually wound up bringing it down. He does not take the stance of trying to instruct the reader, but allows the reader to see the reasonings at work on all sides. This, along with his writing style, make the book one you just don't want to put down. I read until 2:00 a.m. one night! It's a captivating tale, made all the moreso by Holland's writing style and his insights into the minds of the actors involved in every major event. It reads more like an adventure novel than a book on history!

It helped me understand why Christianity came along just when it did, and why the timing was so right for the world at that time. It makes Biblical stories more understandable when the motives and morals of the Romans are understood more fully. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Roman history, world history, politics, philosophy, and in Christianity. It's truly pregnant with insights, and easy to read and understand. I loved it!

25 people found this helpful

Rubicon: a consumer sized portion of Roman history

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2011

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I've long had a fascination with the characters and politics of ancient Rome, whether it be the Republican Period or the Imperial Period that followed the fall of the Republic. However, the most fascinating time for me, perhaps because of the vivid and larger-than-life characters in the cast, the gruesome violence of its politics, and the sheer scale of the stage (from the tip of Spain west to the far shores of the Black Sea east, from the shores of Britain north to the deserts of Africa and the Nile south), is the period as the Republic began to falter and fail and the Roman Empire began to ascend.

Perhaps this period has gained even more currency with me recently because so much of our own politics in many ways echoes the arguments and politics of the Roman Republic. As I have listened, and occasionally participated in, debates and discussions about the role of government, I have heard arguments not unlike those that once were made in the Forum by senators of Rome. How much power should government have, what government should, and shouldn't, do for the people, whether we should engage in wars far across the ocean, whether we should be nation building, what should we do with the many millions of people immigrating across our borders, who should be an American, and so on, and so on. Long before the modern American Republic encountered these issues, the Roman people--under the Republic--debated these issues from in the Forum of Rome.

With these thoughts in mind, as well as a love for gritty and real bare knuckle politics of ancient Rome, I picked up Tom Holland's book. Told in a narrative style with vibrant language, the story reads with novel like ease and speed. But for footnotes and awareness of the history being accounted from other sources, I might have wondered at the fictional like quality to it.

All the great names of Roman history are present. Julius Caesar and his legions. Marcus Cicero, the oratorical giant. Pompey the Great, hero and megalomaniac. Cleopatra, seducer, queen and Pharaoh-goddess. And, of course, my favorite, Cato, the Spartan like idealist and champion of Republican principles, falling upon his sword rather than surrender to dictatorship as Caesar's army marches on Utica.

I usually confine my gym reading to "fun stuff," like novels and other brain candy. However, I found that Holland's history was sufficiently enjoyable that I had difficulty picking up other books for the duration of the read, including at the gym. For those who complain that history is boring, a list of "one thing after another," Holland's Rubicon may be for them. For in it, they may find that `yes,' history does seem to repeat itself, but no, it is not just one thing after another, nor is it boring. Roman history, especially in Holland's telling, is as vibrant, alive, and violent as the Italian operas that their descendants would write over fifteen hundred years later.

Rubicon is, ultimately, a tragic tale marked by violence, civil war, conquest and the fall of the world's longest standing republic. As the turmoil begins to end, we see Octavian rise as the second Caesar, but really as the first emperor, of Rome. His long life and mostly peaceful reign were a marked difference from the tumultuous years of the Republics fall, and they gave rise to a different period in Rome's, and the West's, history. It would be more than seventeen hundred years before another republic with Rome's staying power was established.

As the only constant in history is change, as I closed the book, I could not help but wonder how long our republic will last. I don't mean to speak doom and gloom by saying so, only to point out that human nature is tends to bring about repetition of history, including the failures of democracies and republics alike. How long can ours last? Even if it is only at mid-point or, to be optimistic, a relative beginning, what duration can it have? And will the causes of Rome's fall also cause ours to fall?

26 people found this helpful

thedudeabides1001

Captivating history for the layman and beginner

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2012

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I say layman and beginner only because the obvious texts for those serious about Roman history are the likes of Plutarch, Livy, etc. I just don't understand why there are people on here holding Tom Holland to that standard. there are reviewers here complaining about a lack of detail or depth, or his touristy language of Roman history that reads more like a novel than history. those reviewers should stick to Plutarch and leave T.H. alone. he never proposes that his work is a textbook. it's stylized ancient history, and in writing it so well he proves that ancient history doesn't always have to come from a textbook and taste like an old graham cracker.

This book would have no merit if it were in any way embellished, but it isn't. The facts he provides are well-researched and demonstrate his impressive command of the history. Each chapter is an unfolding of decades of important Roman history delicately tied together to seem like one great big narrative. I can see where historians would have a problem with this aspect of the book, however. he does tend to connect events and figures loosely at times, but look at what we're working with. I say WE because the nature of Roman history is stunted by what little facts we have that have survived and so it is always a daunting task to hook together events that happened 30 or 40 years apart by what little we know. Tom Holland deserves accolades for how he managed to do this by using slight elements of suspense and other novelist's tools to make the reader very willing to suspend chronology in favor of a broad understanding.

He shines when he muses about the personal lives and emotional makeups of his characters, whom he treats like real people, because they were. He avoids sounding like a novelist here only because the personal inclinations of his characters are only offered as a means for understanding their actions and trends within the times. For instance, he goes on about the villas of Sulla, Marius, etc., and their various interests in oyster farming, for instance, not because he thinks that by understanding Gaius Marius as an oyster farmer we will sympathize with his character interpretation, but because it was a crucial fact worth pointing out that wealth and power were displayed in this way and that Marius, though history remembers him as a blood-spattered golden boy of Rome, was also a political entity with public relations and images to uphold. It makes his rivalry with Sulla seem more like a modern jockeying for power that we can wrap our minds around, and less like a Charlton Heston movie.

I think it speaks to the quality of this work that I, a seasoned veteran of Roman history with years of study under my belt, still found this book utterly enchanting, despite knowing almost every story before he got to it. If you love it as much as I, you should by all means read his second book, Persian Fire. It's almost just as good.

13 people found this helpful

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Cliente Kindle

Muito bom

Reviewed in Brazil on February 21, 2024

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Excelente livro!

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Rosanna

Good but digressive

Reviewed in Spain on June 27, 2019

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It is a good book, and Tom Holland is an excellent author; but I was looking for a more narrative text, detailling the story of what happened to end the Roman republic era. I found, instead, an interpretive text; very interesting if one already knows well the period. Narration of facts was almost perfunctory; interpretation of facts pervaded the book.

One person found this helpful

sid

Fascinating and Enthralling

Reviewed in India on November 11, 2018

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What can you say about Tom Holland- extraordinaire and more you attempt to define his writing, more you are intrigued by his works - his flair for writing, his vivid imagination and beyond doubt his innate ability to weave tapestries and tons of it is peerlessly.

He is one author who has through this book, which is a supposedly a historical narrative,has not only entered and dwelled superlatively the minds and machinations of several Roman protagonists of the ilk of Sula, Marius, Caesar, Pompei, Cato, Cicero,Crassus, Antony etc but his recanteur skills are so engrossing and enterprising that as a reader, you are utterly fascinated by the subjects, you can feel their pulse and you are no more partisan but like a chameleon keep on alternating, as the narrative gets grimmer, rosier, more melodramatic and like a delectable serving you don't want it to end.

Your curiosity and certainly your fascination for ancient Romans and their flair for war, barbarity, politics, infighting, rhetoric has been unimplicably ignited and with the characteristic narrative flowing ebblessly along with the characters, you invariably tend to sketch the potraits of several events that have been magisterially described by the author, as if he is describing the contemporary events , stretching the scanty historical information to its limits.

Highly recommended for all even if it is the start of your journey into the times of ancient Romans, let this be it and mind it, you will not regret having expended time reading it for there is no doubt once you have read few more tomes of that era , you would revert to an encore.

3 people found this helpful

M. Henry Shepherd

An excellent book giving vast amounts of good information.

Reviewed in France on May 4, 2018

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I am interested in Roman History and found this book to be a very satisfying and informative read. I shall be looking to purchase more books by Mr. Holland.

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Kindle Customer

Great read

Reviewed in Australia on May 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Loved the details and the broad sweep. He makes the drama clear but manages to convey a good deal of information

One person found this helpful

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