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Rubicon Paperback – March 8, 2005
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“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
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.
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateMarch 8, 2005
- Dimensions5.2 x 0.89 x 8 inches
- ISBN-101400078970
- ISBN-13978-1400078974
- Lexile measure1140L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“This gripping narrative resurrects some of the half-forgotten personalities and events that shaped who we are. . . . It enables the reader to relive the slow, bloodstained collapse of a system, not only as a fascinating drama in its own right but as a morality tale.” –Anthony Everitt, author of Cicero
“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
“Tremendously intelligent, vibrant and witty.” –The Washington Times
“The crispest and most compelling account. . . . A historical thrill ride.” –The Seattle Times
“Splendid. . . . Rich. . . . Holland writes history with a sense of immediacy, and with the passion and pacing of a novelist. . . . His absorbing, witty narrative captures the scope and drama of the republic and shapes its labyrinthine elements into a single continuum.” –Houston Chronicle
“[A] book that really held me, in fact, obsessed me. . . . Narrative history at its best.” –Ian McEwan, The Guardian, Books of the Year
“Very readable. . . . Witty, literate. . . . [It] outlines as no other story in history can the perils and misadventures that bring down democratic governments.” –St. Petersburg Times
“Gripping and hugely entertaining. . . . It is a story crammed with drama and spectacle, but the real attraction of Holland’s book is the wit and contemporary sensibility that he brings to his often bloody tale.” –The Sunday Times (London), Top 5 History Books of the Year
“Lucid, stylish and witty, and interesting in its analysis. . . . Informative, balanced, and accessible, Holland’s compelling brand of narrative history is a praiseworthy rendition of one of the most complex periods in history.” –BookPage
“A lively, popularly written history. . . . Holland’s book is full of memorable characters.” –World
“Explosive stuff. . . . Seriously intelligent history written with élan and gusto.” –BBC History Magazine
“Lively, readable, briskly paced. . . . Thoroughly grounded in the relevant source material. . . . Seamless, forward-moving. . . . Not only a gripping account of the Roman past, but an important perspective on the current American moment. . . . Rubiconsucceeds brilliantly.” –Claremont Review of Books
“Richly resonant. . . . Ancient history lives in this vivid chronicle.” –Booklist (starred review)
“A terrific read and a remarkable piece of scholarship. As an introduction to Roman history, it is unlikely to be bettered.” –Daily Mail
“Holland brings a novelist’s eye to the ancient republic’s collapse. . . . [He] also draws a fascinating portrait of the social life of Rome and the republic in the first century B.C. . . . Written with flair, wit and solid historical research, Rubiconis grand history and grandly entertaining.” –Flint Journal
“A vivid social portrait of the Roman world.” –Sunday Telegraph
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Visit the author's website at www.tom-holland.org.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Paradoxical Republic
Ancestral Voices
In the beginning, before the Republic, Rome was ruled by kings. About one of these, a haughty tyrant by the name of Tarquin, an eerie tale was told. Once, in his palace, an old woman came calling on him. In her arms she carried nine books. When she offered these to Tarquin he laughed in her face, so fabulous was the price she was demanding. The old woman, making no attempt to bargain, turned and left without a word. She burned three of the books and then, reappearing before the king, offered him the remaining volumes, still at the same price as before. A second time, although with less self-assurance now, the king refused, and a second time the old woman turned and left. By now Tarquin had grown nervous of what he might be turning down, and so when the mysterious crone reappeared, this time holding only three books, he hurriedly bought them, even though he had to pay the price originally demanded for all nine. Taking her money, the old woman then vanished, never to be seen again.
Who had she been? Her books proved to contain prophecies of such potency that the Romans soon realized that only one woman could possibly have been their author--the Sibyl. Yet this was an identification that only begged further questions, for the legends told of the Sibyl were strange and puzzling. On the presumption that she had foretold the Trojan War, men debated whether she was a compound of ten prophetesses, or immortal, or destined to live a thousand years. Some--the more sophisticated--even wondered whether she existed at all. In fact, only two things could be asserted with any real confidence--that her books, inscribed with spidery and antique Greek, certainly existed, and that within them could be read the pattern of events that were to come. The Romans, thanks to Tarquin's belated eye for a bargain, found themselves with a window to the future of the world.
Not that this helped Tarquin much. In 509 bc he succumbed to a palace coup. Kings had been ruling in Rome for more than two hundred years, ever since the city's foundation, but Tarquin, the seventh in line, would also be the last.* With his expulsion, the monarchy itself was overthrown, and, in its place, a free republic proclaimed. From then on, the title of "king" would be regarded by the Roman people with an almost pathological hatred, to be shrunk from and shuddered at whenever mentioned. Liberty had been the watchword of the coup against Tarquin, and liberty, the liberty of a city that had no master, was now consecrated as the birthright and measure of every citizen. To preserve it from the ambitions of future would-be tyrants, the founders of the Republic settled upon a remarkable formula. Carefully, they divided the powers of the exiled Tarquin between two magistrates, both elected, neither permitted to serve for longer than a year. These were the consuls, and their presence at the head of their fellow citizens, the one guarding against the ambitions of the other, was a stirring expression of the Republic's guiding principle--that never again should one man be permitted to rule supreme in Rome. Yet, startling though the innovation of the consulship appeared, it was not so radical as to separate the Romans entirely from their past. The monarchy might have been abolished, but very little else. The roots of the new Republic reached far back in time--often very far back indeed. The consuls themselves, as a privilege of their office, bordered their togas with the purple of kings. When they consulted the auspices they did so according to rites that predated the very foundation of Rome. And then, of course, most fabulous of all, there were the books left behind by the exiled Tarquin, the three mysterious rolls of prophecy, the writings of the ancient and quite possibly timeless Sibyl.
So sensitive was the information provided by these that access to them was strictly regulated as a secret of the state. Citizens found copying them would be sewn into a sack and dropped into the sea. Only in the most perilous of circumstances, when fearsome prodigies warned the Republic of looming catastrophe, was it permitted to consult the books at all. Then, once every alternative had been exhausted, specially appointed magistrates would be mandated to climb to the temple of Jupiter, where the books were kept in conditions of the tightest security. The scrolls would be spread out. Fingers would trace the faded lines of Greek. Prophecies would be deciphered, and advice taken on how best to appease the angered heavens.
And advice was always found. The Romans, being a people as practical as they were devout, had no patience with fatalism. They were interested in knowing the future only because they believed that it could then better be kept at bay. Showers of blood, chasms spitting fire, mice eating gold: terrifying prodigies such as these were regarded as the equivalent of bailiffs' duns, warnings to the Roman people that they stood in arrears with the gods. To get back in credit might require the introduction of a foreign cult to the city, the worship of a divinity who had hitherto been unknown. More typically, it would inspire retrenchment, as the magistrates desperately sought to identify the traditions that might have been neglected. Restore the past, the way that things had always been, and the safety of the Republic would be assured.
This was a presumption buried deep in the soul of every Roman. In the century that followed its establishment, the Republic was repeatedly racked by further social convulsions, by demands from the mass of citizens for expanded civic rights, and by continued constitutional reforms--and yet throughout this turbulent period of upheaval, the Roman people never ceased to affect a stern distaste for change. Novelty, to the citizens of the Republic, had sinister connotations. Pragmatic as they were, they might accept innovation if it were dressed up as the will of the gods or an ancient custom, but never for its own sake. Conservative and flexible in equal measure, the Romans kept what worked, adapted what had failed, and preserved as sacred lumber what had become redundant. The Republic was both a building site and a junkyard. Rome's future was constructed amid the jumble of her past.
The Romans themselves, far from seeing this as a paradox, took it for granted. How else were they to invest in their city save by holding true to the customs of their ancestors? Foreign analysts, who tended to regard the Romans' piety as "superstition,"1 and interpreted it as a subterfuge played on the masses by a cynical ruling class, misread its essence. The Republic was not like other states. While the cities of the Greeks were regularly shattered by civil wars and revolutions, Rome proved herself impervious to such disasters. Not once, despite all the social upheavals of the Republic's first century of existence, had the blood of her own citizens been spilled on her streets. How typical of the Greeks to reduce the ideal of shared citizenship to sophistry! To a Roman, nothing was more sacred or cherished. After all, it was what defined him. Public business--res publica--was what "republic" meant. Only by seeing himself reflected in the gaze of his fellows could a Roman truly know himself a man.
And by hearing his name on every tongue. The good citizen, in the Republic, was the citizen acknowledged to be good. The Romans recognized no difference between moral excellence and reputation, having the same word, honestas, for both. The approval of the entire city was the ultimate, the only, test of worth. This was why, whenever resentful citizens took to the streets, it would be to demand access to yet more honors and glory. Civil unrest would invariably inspire the establishment of a new magistracy: the aedileship and tribunate in 494, the quaestorship in 447, the praetorship in 367. The more posts there were, the greater the range of responsibilities; the greater the range of responsibilities, the broader the opportunities for achievement and approbation. Praise was what every citizen most desired--just as public shame was his ultimate dread. Not laws but the consciousness of always being watched was what prevented a Roman's sense of competition from degenerating into selfish ambition. Gruelling and implacable though the contest to excel invariably was, there could be no place in it for ill-disciplined vainglory. To place personal honor above the interests of the entire community was the behavior of a barbarian--or worse yet, a king.
In their relations with their fellows, then, the citizens of the Republic were schooled to temper their competitive instincts for the common good. In their relations with other states, however, no such inhibitions cramped them. "More than any other nation, the Romans have sought out glory and been greedy for praise."2 The consequences for their neighbors of this hunger for honor were invariably devastating. The legions' combination of efficiency and ruthlessness was something for which few opponents found themselves prepared. When the Romans were compelled by defiance to take a city by storm, it was their practice to slaughter every living creature they found. Rubble left behind by the legionaries could always be distinguished by the way in which severed dogs' heads or the dismembered limbs of cattle would lie strewn among the human corpses.3 The Romans killed to inspire terror, not in a savage frenzy but as the disciplined components of a fighting machine. The courage they brought to service in the legions, steeled by pride in their city and faith in her destiny, was an emotion that every citizen was brought up to share. Something uniquely lethal--and, to the Romans, glorious--marked their way of war.
Even so, it took time for the other states of Italy to wake up to the nature of the predator in their midst. For the first century of the Republic's existence the Romans found it a struggle to establish their supremacy over cities barely ten miles from their own gates. Yet even the deadliest carnivore must have its infancy, and the Romans, as they raided cattle and skirmished with petty hill tribes, were developing the instincts required to dominate and kill. By the 360s bc they had established their city as the mistress of central Italy. In the following decades they marched north and south, crushing opposition wherever they met it. By the 260s, with startling speed, they had mastered the entire peninsula. Honor, of course, had demanded nothing less. To states that humbly acknowledged their superiority, the Romans would grant such favors as a patron condescends to grant his clients, but to those who defied them, only ceaseless combat. No Roman could tolerate the prospect of his city losing face. Rather than endure it, he would put up with any amount of suffering, go to any lengths.
The time soon came when the Republic had to demonstrate this in a literal struggle to the death. The wars with Carthage were the most terrible it ever fought. A city of Semitic settlers on the North African coast, dominating the trade routes of the western Mediterranean, Carthage possessed resources at least as great as Rome's. Although predominantly a maritime power, she had indulged herself for centuries with bouts of warfare against the Greek cities of Sicily. Now, poised beyond the Straits of Messina, the Romans represented an ominous but intriguing new factor in Sicily's military equation. Predictably, the Greeks on the island could not resist embroiling the Republic in their perennial squabbles with Carthage. Equally predictably, once invited in, the Republic refused to play by the rules. In 264 Rome transformed what had been a minor dispute over treaty rights into a total war. Despite a lack of any naval tradition, and the loss of fleet after fleet to enemy action or storms, the Romans endured over two decades of appalling casualties to bring Carthage, at last, to defeat. By the terms of the peace treaty forced on them, the Carthaginians undertook a complete withdrawal from Sicily. Without ever having intended it, Rome found herself with the nucleus of an overseas empire. In 227 Sicily was constituted as the first Roman province.
The theater of the Republic's campaigning was soon to grow even wider. Carthage had been defeated, but not smashed. With Sicily lost, she next turned her imperial attentions to Spain. Braving the murderous tribes who swarmed everywhere in the mountains, the Carthaginians began to prospect for precious metals. The flood of wealth from their mines soon enabled them to contemplate resuming hostilities. Carthage's best generals were no longer under any illusions as to the nature of the enemy they faced in the Republic. Total war would have to be met in kind, and victory would be impossible unless Roman power were utterly destroyed.
It was to achieve this that Hannibal, in 218, led a Carthaginian army from Spain, through southern Gaul and over the Alps. Displaying a mastery of strategy and tactics far beyond that of his opponents, he brought three Roman armies to sensational defeat. In the third of his victories, at Cannae, Hannibal wiped out eight legions, the worst military disaster in the Republic's history. By every convention and expectation of contemporary warfare, Rome should have followed it by acknowledging Hannibal's triumph, and attempting to sue for peace. But in the face of catastrophe, she showed only continued defiance. Naturally, at such a moment, the Romans turned for guidance to the prophecies of the Sibyl. These prescribed that two Gauls and two Greeks be buried alive in the city's marketplace. The magistrates duly followed the Sibyl's advice. With this shocking act of barbarism, the Roman people demonstrated that there was nothing they would not countenance to preserve their city's freedom. The only alternative to liberty--as it had always been--was death.
And grimly, year by year, the Republic hauled itself back from the brink. More armies were raised; Sicily was held; the legions conquered Carthage's empire in Spain. A decade and a half after Cannae Hannibal faced another Roman army, but this time on African soil. He was defeated. Carthage no longer had the manpower to continue the struggle, and when her conqueror's terms were delivered, Hannibal advised his compatriots to accept them. Unlike the Republic after Cannae, he preferred not to risk his city's obliteration. Despite this, the Romans never forgot that in Hannibal, in the scale of his exertions, in the scope of his ambition, they had met the enemy who was most like themselves. Centuries later statues of him were still to be found standing in Rome. And even after they had reduced Carthage to an impotent rump, confiscating her provinces, her fleet, her celebrated war-elephants, the Romans continued to dread a Carthaginian recovery. Such hatred was the greatest compliment they could pay a foreign state. Carthage could not be trusted in her submission. The Romans looked into their own souls and attributed the implacability they found there to their greatest foe.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; First Anchor Books Edition (March 8, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1400078970
- ISBN-13 : 978-1400078974
- Lexile measure : 1140L
- Item Weight : 14.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.89 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #13,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14 in Ancient Roman History (Books)
- #36 in History & Theory of Politics
- #188 in Military History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, biographer and broadcaster. He is the author of Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Persian Fire his history of the Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006; Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom, a panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000; In the Shadow of the Sword, which covers the collapse of Roman and Persian power in the Near East, and the emergence of Islam; and Dynasty, a portrait of Rome's first imperial dynasty.
He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC. His translation of Herodotus was published in 2013 by Penguin Classics. His biography of Æthelstan, the first King of England, was published in 2016 under the Penguin Monarchs series, and his biography of Æthelflæd, England’s Forgotten Founder, was a Ladybird Expert Book published in 2019. In 2007, he was the winner of the Classical Association prize, awarded to ‘the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome’.
Holland is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making History. He has written and presented a number of TV documentaries, for the BBC and Channel 4, on subjects ranging from ISIS to dinosaurs.
He served two years as the Chair of the Society of Authors and is Chair of the British Library’s PLR Advisory Committee.
@holland_tom
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Customers find the book readable and informative, providing an engaging introduction to Roman history. They find it well-written and a worthwhile read for novices. The pacing is described as rapid but not really novelistic. The book is accurate and meticulously documented, with vivid visuals. However, opinions differ on the character variety - some find them interesting and alive, while others consider them fictionalized.
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Customers find the book readable and engaging. They appreciate the well-written introduction to the late republic in a narrative style with vibrant language. The narrative makes the history more readable and compelling. Readers mention it's a fun and exciting read that requires re-reading for details.
"Holland is a great writer. He delivered the history and downfall of the Roman republic in grand fashion...." Read more
"...Told in a narrative style with vibrant language, the story reads with novel like ease and speed...." Read more
"...Tom Holland has done a magnificent job of fleshing out everything about these times and its citizens...." Read more
"...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..." Read more
Customers find the book informative and engaging. They appreciate the author's skill in presenting history in an accessible way. The narrative provides a good explanation of the events leading up to Caesar's rise and end. Readers find it useful for learning new insights into Roman history. While some consider it an accessible historian, others prefer Robert K. Massie's works.
"...Anyone can read this and be swept along by this fantastic story with deep insights into the world of the Roman citizen. Spectacular." Read more
"...However, I found that Holland's history was sufficiently enjoyable that I had difficulty picking up other books for the duration of the read,..." Read more
"...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..." Read more
"Tom Holland is perhaps the best accessible historian writing about the classical world with an emphasis on ideas and values, rather than social,..." Read more
Customers find the book a worthwhile read for novice students of the Roman world. They say it provides an excellent introduction to the last days of the Roman Republic and is worth the investment of time and money. The dictionary feature helps readers through the whole book.
"...All in all, a worthwhile refresher on the final years of the Republic and the actors therein, from a somewhat novel viewpoint." Read more
"...A worthy beginning, with the aim of backtracking to trace the precedent for Caesar's action in the notorious deeds, not many years earlier, of..." Read more
"...Worth the read, especially for a novice student of the Roman world. :)" Read more
"...here new to readers familiar with Roman history, this is an excellent book for newcomers who hold a passing interest...." Read more
Customers find the book's pace fast at first but settles to a good pace. They appreciate the timely content and consider it an interesting read.
"...The pace is rapid but not really novelistic as some reviews claim. Rather, it is just hurried...." Read more
"...For the most part, I found Holland's prose to be lucid and fast-paced. The book doesn't read like a dry history tome, but more like a novel...." Read more
"This is a quick, easy read...." Read more
"...Very fast paced at times, he does go through 767 years of history in one book. The first half flies through centuries it seems...." Read more
Customers find the book's visual style insightful and vibrant. They appreciate the maps and illustrations, describing Rome as a wonderful canvas painted by an artist of immense talent. The prose is lucid and fast-paced, making it easy to read.
"...He delivered the history and downfall of the Roman republic in grand fashion...." Read more
"...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..." Read more
"...For the most part, I found Holland's prose to be lucid and fast-paced. The book doesn't read like a dry history tome, but more like a novel...." Read more
"...a way that is refreshing and, in my opinion, fascinating and very much illustrative of what made Rome, Rome...." Read more
Customers find the book accurate and well-documented. They appreciate the author's meticulous research and shrewd observations. The book is described as engaging, with a lot of detail that is often glossed over in standard texts. Readers praise the book as smart and gripping history.
"...His narrative is literate, compelling, and amusing; it seems consistent with the documents...." Read more
"...Most of everything she wrote was factually accurate and when she makes conjectures or speculates, she lets you know in the end notes...." Read more
"...When I read it I was amazed. Erudite, witty and gifted in the quality and rhythm of his prose, he is one of the best narrative historians alive...." Read more
"...a great book, full of insights into Roman culture and character, accurate and comprehensive about the history...." Read more
Customers have different views on the characters. Some find them interesting and relatable, bringing the 2000 characters to life. Others feel the characters are unlikable.
"...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..." Read more
"...well mired in irrelevant details of the antics and wrong-doings of secondary characters. Solid on Cato...." Read more
"...A host of characters come into play, including supporting characters like Catiline, Clodius, and Milo as well as familiars like Cato, Cicero, and..." Read more
"...of the facts as we know them, idle speculation, or fictionalization of the major players...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2025Holland is a great writer. He delivered the history and downfall of the Roman republic in grand fashion. Anyone can read this and be swept along by this fantastic story with deep insights into the world of the Roman citizen. Spectacular.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2011I'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?
- Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2024Throughout my 70+ years, I’ve read many histories of Rome.
Most centering on this time period that some of history’s most celebrated characters lived, worked and have come down to us in a number of ancient sources.
Tom Holland has done a magnificent job of fleshing out everything about these times and its citizens.
The characters themselves, how and why they thought or acted as they did.
Ordinary Romans themselves in the same light. The republic itself and it’s relevant myths, histories, mores. How all of this affected everything and everyone.
Pieces of the earliest recorded life of Julius Ceasar that I had not remembered or possibly read before!. A masterful explanation of Octavian, who he was and how did he do it, in only a small number of pages that revealed this man more deeply than entire books on him!
Truly, a fantastic job, Mr Holland!
- Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2024I knew the general bullet points of the end of Roman Republic, but this book really fleshed it out, explaining the fissures which developed well before Julius Caesar came on the scene.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2012I 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.
Top reviews from other countries
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FernandoReviewed in Brazil on May 7, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Boa leitura para quem gosta de historia
Livro chegou bem rapido. Uma otima leitura para quem costa de historia antiga como eu. bem esrito, ja tenho varios outros oolumes do mesmo autor.
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Amazon CustomerReviewed in Spain on December 13, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Exelente libro
Uno de los mejores libros sobre Roma que he leido.
Ha llegado rapido y en perfecto condicion.
- GiorgioReviewed in Italy on September 5, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars An unexpected surprise
I really enjoyed the book and I can honestly say that I learned a lot. An unexpected surprise
- sidReviewed in India on November 11, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Enthralling
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.
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M. Henry ShepherdReviewed in France on May 4, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book giving vast amounts of good information.
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.