Rubicon

I finished reading Rubicon a few months ago. Bought this book at the airport in Cincinnati when my flight was delayed and I was basically bored out of my mind. Such little occurances sometimes in a strange way bring something significant to your life for the months to follow. Let me spend a few minutes discussing how I bought this book in the firstplace.

I am bored, sitting, waiting, staring into the empty space. Zak keeps bitching about how few books he has read since his son was born. He drags me into this dingy airport bookstore to search for chicken soup for the soul. I have no intention of buying any books. But I see this shop assistant stand there by himself and start to chat with him. My chit chat quickly slips into a simple inquiry of what books I should read! Out of all the books he recommends, I am interested in none. But after all, I am a nice guy. I buy the book I hate the least so that he does not see his time wasted. Rubicon in this way ends up in my travel bag for the next few months.

Caesar together with his legions froze in front of River Rubicon, challenged. The closest Roman resistance was tens of miles away; and the river was narrow with a slow moving stream. What stopped Caesar and his men? It is the notion of turning against Rome, these mens' own country, their fellow citizens and becoming the first one after Sulla to march into the city that symbolized the Republic.

Rather than writing my own review. I lifted one review from Amazon to occupy this space for now, until I get to write down my own views. =)

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
As The Civil War Turns: Roman Republic & Triumvirate 90210!!, October 14, 2005
Reviewer: The Hoplite Phalanx Fighting Formation "Twelve Labors of Heracles" (Swing on a Spiral) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Holland triumphs in his retelling and reinterpretation of Rome's Republic's death because he makes the extra effort to offer the lesson from a different and unconventional angle: the viewpoint of storyteller. This way, the history lesson becomes more engrossing and sheds the at-times unfriendly veneer that textbook-like examination would confront with. Instead, reading like a mystery/suspense/thriller novel, Holland's able to increase the captivation of the reader because Rubicon appears as a page-turner which multiplies its shockingly unbelievable developments instead of more dry, formal presentations that straightforward history books would have. Therefore, Holland was shrewd to take advantage of this reader-friendly format because the Republic's players and storminess offered verifiably many, shocking progressions an author could well exploit.

Holland begins with civil war 1, which resulted from power struggle between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Rome's first dictator, over war command against Eastern king Mithridates. Sulla committed sacrilege: marching his legions into Rome instead of serving the Republic's war plans, where he posted his foes' death warrants. With Sulla suppressing in Greece, the Marians regrouped and coordinated an alliance, but Sulla constituted a greater following than in his first march on Rome, notably comprised of Pompey the Great--future conqueror of the East. When Sulla defeated the Marians, both consuls were dead so Sulla took over as dictator, purging Rome of his enemies through death squads. Because Sulla was conservative despite usurpation, he connived to project himself as the Republic's restorer, stooping so low to use antiquated Roman provisions to legalize his oppressiveness and impose legislation which outlawed the same tyranny he'd done of seizing control of Rome. He endorsed importance on middle age's virtue and enlarged the Senate unconventionally, even forfeiting his totalitarianism in 81 B.C., but Sulla's terrorism foreboded other would-be imposers because of temptations of possibilities of absolute power he inflicted.

In the last decades before Empire, there's an intersecting of high-profile Romans' interests. Julius Caesar, when a young man, was driven out of Rome by Sulla for insubordination and didn't return immediately. Only when Sulla died in 78 B.C. did Caesar return, after honing his developing skills in Asia by studying provincial administration and army service. In 65 B.C., he became aedile, answerable for the public games, then continued rising by eying the election of pontifex maximus (high priest), which he won.

Cicero would gloat he saved Rome from its first revolution while being consul. Cicero's career path was oratory, where he idealized to become Rome's greatest by surpassing Hortensius, Rome's leading orator in the decade after Sulla. Ascending the Cursus, Cicero finally confronted Hortensius in prosecuting the case of Verres, a Sulla administrator. Though Roman trials were immoral because of bribery, Cicero supplanted Hortensius since he presented his evidence instantly. Cicero unmasked one Catiline's schemes in 63 B.C. before a packed Senate through implicating letters enigmatically delivered to his house. Despite Catiline's fleeing Rome, his coconspirators were captured and garroted due to the state of emergency.

Caesar eschewed to Spain for governorship when Clodius--youngest of the high-achieving but tainted Claudii family--was rumored to have violated his wife, because as pontifex, he was suspected for bedding men and women, not to mention risking angering Clodius' supporters, his own, too. He returned in 60 B.C. for consul elections, which traditionalists like Cato opposed, securing Senate majority and 2nd consul on their side. This simmering standoff between Caesar and Cato founded the beginning of the Republic's values' decay. Soon after elections, Caesar, Pompey and Crassus connived to lawlessly rule as a triumvirate, overruling SPQR. Crassus was a shyster who always shifted to competing sides for single-minded power, his latest alliance betraying Cato.

Clodius, in 59 B.C., plotted his way to power by ensnaring the poor since his acceptability was cold-shouldered by the Senate, being declared plebian to facilitate his tribunate. In no time, Clodius marshaled the slums behind him, raising gangs from collegia--trade associations--and aligning with Caesar. Meanwhile, Caesar was massacring German Barbarians and Gauls in the North, viewed by invader-weary Romans as defensive aggression. Clodius plotted Senatorial approval by defaming Pompey whose legions of conquest provoked distrust from the Senate of conservative Republicanism. Forecasting imminent civil war, Pompey retaliated by enlisting Titus Annius Milo to form gangs himself to counter Clodius.

Triumvirate discord caused its split with chasms between Pompey and Crassus, but they connived with Clodius' older brother--Appius--to delay consular elections in 55 B.C. so they could obtain consular, Syrian and Spanish commands. Caesar continued to build prestige with Roman citizens by slaughtering Gallic barbarians, including his famous, inward-outward, fortifications-siege of Alesia. Rome slid into anarchy when consuls Appius and Domitius were accused of rigging elections, working to Pompey's favor as an order-imposing general. In 52 B.C., Pompey was voted near-tyrannical authority to crumble said anarchy, uniting even critics like Cato.

Because of Caesar's unprecedented Gallic successes, there was a senatorial proposal to permit him successive consulship--allowing him circumvention of citizenry limitations, but Cato wanted to try Caesar's usurpation. However, although Pompey, Cato and a majority were planning to curb Caesar's ambitions, his old adversary, the tribune Curio, supported Caesar, laying civil war's foundations: Cato, Pompey, the constitutionalists against Caesar's seeming increment in absolute power. Caesar's loyalist Antony won the augurate over his co-consul Domitius Ahenobarbus, widening the Senatorial and Caesarian factions' schism until Gaius Marcellus, an anti-Caesarian, openly accosted Pompey to rescue the Republic from Caesar. In January 49 B.C., state of emergency was proclaimed by the Senate to enable Pompey's legions into Rome with Antony fleeing north. We know Caesar crumbled Pompey, was massacred because of Cleopatra's association and Senatorial overruling, and his son, Octavian, won the ensuing power struggle with Antony and Marcus Lepidus to become emperor.

Holland's derogation is his laxity to conjecture what historical characters are THINKING or assume to know details about unnaturally precise situations--like "slums erupted in cheering", "flowers appeared on Catiline's grave" when Antonius Hybrida was convicted of helping Catiline's Republic subversion--but, otherwise, Rubicon's a fine change of presentation.