49 BCEthe Rubicon
2,074 years ago
A place in this history (Pleiades 393484). 3 posts and events, oldest first.
, the Rubicon
Caesar leads his army over the river that marked the edge of his province, which the law forbade. It starts a civil war with Pompey and the Senate.
Let the die be cast, he hastened to cross the river
“We may still retreat; but if we pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms.”
Background: Crossing the Rubicon, Wikipedia (opens en.wikipedia.org)
Caesar at the Rubicon, as Suetonius tells it
What was going on: As Suetonius tells it, over a century later: after the tribunes who spoke for Caesar fled Rome, he set off by night and got lost on the way. At the Rubicon, the edge of his province, he stopped. Crossing it with an army, which the law forbade, began a civil war with Pompey and the Senate.
Why it matters: The crossing set off a civil war that eventually made Caesar dictator for life. It also gave us the idiom crossing the Rubicon, meaning passing the point of no return.
At the river that bordered his province, he stopped to think, then said: we can still turn back, but once we cross this little bridge, we have to fight it out.
Coming up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province, he halted for a while, and, revolving in his mind the importance of the step he was on the point of taking, he turned to those about him, and said: “We may still retreat; but if we pass this little bridge, nothing is left for us but to fight it out in arms.”
Caesar crosses the Rubicon, as Plutarch tells it
What was going on: Caesar reaches the Rubicon, the river between Cisalpine Gaul and the rest of Italy, and stops to argue it out with himself and his friends. Leading an army across was against the law and started a civil war. Plutarch tells it over a century later.
Why it matters: The crossing set off a civil war that eventually made Caesar dictator for life. It also gave us the idiom crossing the Rubicon, meaning passing the point of no return.
At last, as if giving up on calculation, he said what people say before a reckless plunge, let the die be cast, crossed the river and took Ariminum before dawn.
But finally, with a sort of passion, as if abandoning calculation and casting himself upon the future, and uttering the phrase with which men usually prelude their plunge into desperate and daring fortunes, Let the die be cast, he hastened to cross the river; and going at full speed now for the rest of the time, before daybreak he dashed into Ariminum and took possession of it.
