Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

Overview

Coming after a recent deep dive on ancient history (see here, here, here) I wanted something that with give me a good refresher on the major players on the late Roman republic, ahead of this years reading project to read all of Plutarch’s Parallel lives. ¶

Rubicon more than delivered in this goal, weaving together a very readable narrative history of The Social War through to the rise of Augustus. It also provided a clear overview of some of the characters I was less familiar with like ¶

• Lucullus
• Caecilius Metellus
• Publius Clodius Pulcher

Questions/Followup

• Why was Cato and the Senate Optimates so obstinate? Trying to strip him of the command of Gaul, prosecution threat etc , not taking détente offer to drop command at same time as Pompey - did they know they were forcing him into a corner? (Pattern with Sulla & eastern command) ¶

• Sulla (and Octavian) post revolutionary violence (prescription lists) as a tool to meet the immediate financial needs of the new regime (see also the 30 tyrants in Athens) ¶

• More details on Octavian, very rapid rise ¶

• Octavian and forced expropriation of land to meet the needs of veterans - must be good research on this ¶

• How did Divorce function in Roman Society? Was it restricted to upper class family only? Custody and inheritance post divorce? ¶

• dynamics of Capital investment driven by elite competition, eg Pompey theatre which was funded by largesse from eastern spoils ¶

• Military history details - Lucullus and Battle of Tigranocerta, Caesar’s campaign vs Pompey ¶

• The Gens, Patron Client dynamics and how that feed into Republican dysfunction ¶

Memorable Quotes

“Sulla, first in consternation and then in mounting fury, retired to his tent. There he did some quick calculations. With him at Nola he had six legions. Five of these had been assigned to the war against Mithridates and one to the continued prosecution of the siege – in all, around thirty thousand men. Although much reduced from the numbers Sulla had commanded the previous summer, they nevertheless represented a menacing concentration of fighting power. Only the legions of Pompeius Strabo, busy mopping up rebels on the other side of Italy, could hope to rival them. Marius, back in Rome, had no legions whatsoever.

The maths was simple. Why, then, had Marius failed to work it out, and how could so hardened an operator have chosen to drive his great rival into a corner where there were six battle-hardened legions ready to hand? Clearly, the prospect that Sulla might come out of it fighting had never even crossed Marius’ mind. It was impossible, unthinkable. After all, a Roman army was not the private militia of the general who commanded it, but the embodiment of the Republic at war. Its loyalty was owed to whomever was appointed to its command by the due processes of the constitution. This was how it had always been, for as long as the Republic’s citizens had been going to war – and Marius had no reason to imagine that things might possibly have changed.”

— p. ???

“Even so, Cicero could have escaped. News of his proscription reached him well in advance of the bounty-hunters. Typically, however, he panicked and vacillated over what to do. Rather than setting sail to join Brutus and Cassius, who were even then recruiting a massive army of liberation in the East, he instead flitted despairingly from villa to villa, haunted, as he had been for so long, by the shadow of exile. After all, as Cato had taught him, there were nightmares worse than death. Trapped by his executioners at last, Cicero leaned out from his litter and bared his throat to the sword. This was the gesture of a gladiator, and one he had always admired. Defeated in the greatest and deadliest of all games, he unflinchingly accepted his fate. He died as he would surely have wished: bravely, a martyr to freedom and to freedom of speech.

Even his enemies knew that. When his severed head and hands were delivered by the bounty-hunters, Fulvia, Clodius’ widow and now Antony’s wife, hurried to gloat. Picking up the grisly souvenirs, she spat on Cicero’s head, then yanked out his tongue and stabbed it with a hairpin. Only when she had finished mutilating it was she willing to have the head exposed to the public. The hand that had written the great speeches against Antony was nailed up too. Silenced and pin-pricked as it was, exposed to the gaze of the Roman people, the tongue was eloquent still. Cicero had been the incomparable political orator of the Republic – and now the age of oratory and free politics was dead.”

— p. 362

“Gradually, however, with the rise of new empires, first those of Alexander the Great and his successors, and then of Rome, the independence of such citizens everywhere had been stifled. By the first century BC, there was only one free city left, and that was Rome herself. And then Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the Republic imploded, and none was left at all. As a result, a thousand years of civic self-government were brought to an end, and not for another thousand, and more, would it become a living reality again.” -p. xxii

Crassus himself, stupefied by the utter ruin of all his hopes, was lured by the Parthians into a parley. Having tricked so many, he now found himself tricked in his turn. Caught up in a scuffle, he was struck down. Death spared Crassus a humiliating ordeal. Baulked of their prey, the Parthians inflicted it instead on an impersonator drawn from the ranks of their prisoners. Dressed as a woman, escorted by lictors whose rods were adorned by money-bags, and axes by legionaries’ heads, followed by jeering prostitutes, the captive was led in a savage parody of a triumph. Clearly, the Parthians knew more of Roman military traditions than the Romans had known of theirs. — p. 269

Related Reading

Changelog

2024-01-14: Initial review ¶