Table Of Content
Tom Holland has adapted Herodotus, Homer, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC
Radio. He lives in London with his wife and two children.
Praise for Tom Holland’s Rubicon
Winner of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2004
‘This is narrative history at its best … It really held me, in fact, obsessed me …
Bloody and labyrinthine political intrigue and struggle, brilliant oratory, amazing
feats of conquest and cruelty. Holland’s lucid account of this alien civilisation
moves at a fine pace. He makes no facile comparisons with our times, but you
sense you are witnessing through him the enduring difficulty of reconciling
power and peace’
Ian McEwan, Books of the Year
‘It’s terrific and I’m so grateful to [Tom Holland] for reminding me, so vividly,
of not just the Roman Empire but of the people it produced and influenced’
Joanna Trollope, Observer Books of the Year 2005
‘I am afraid I have read nothing but books about the Roman Empire, the most
gripping of which was Tom Holland’s Rubicon’
Boris Johnson, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 2005
‘Holland writes throughout with wonderful zest … this is a terrific read and a
remarkable piece of scholarship. As an introduction to Roman history, it is
unlikely to be bettered’
Christopher Matthews, Daily Mail
‘A fine achievement, a book which will still deserve to be read when the political
fashion has moved on … For any newcomer who wants the story of the Republic
[and] who is tired of hearing people bang on about what the Romans did for us
and wants to know what (and how) the Romans did for themselves, this is
probably as good as it gets’
Peter Stothard, Times Literary Supplement
‘A model of exactly how a popular history of the classical world should be
written … a riveting study of the period … the most readable book on the later
Roman republic since Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution … Next time
someone asks me why they should study Roman history, Rubicon will be one of
the first books that I shall direct them to’
Richard Miles, Guardian
‘The bloodstained drama of the last decades of the Roman Republic … is told
afresh with tremendous wit, narrative verve and insight … What characters there
were in this drama! He resurrects them with a novelistic luminosity which
illuminates not only that lost world, but our own as well’
Christopher Hart, Independent on Sunday
‘The story of Rome’s experiment with republicanism – peopled by such giants as
Caesar, Pompey, Cato and Cicero – is told with perfect freshness, fine wit and
true scholarship’
Andrew Roberts
‘Holland has the rare gift of making deep scholarship accessible and exciting. A
brilliant and completely absorbing study’
A. N. Wilson
‘Tom Holland’s Rubicon makes history read like a thrilling mafia epic. Classical
celebrities who flit across the subconscious of half-educated people like me keep
walking in and swaggering about, all alive’
Griff Rhys Jones, Books of the Year
‘A history of the Roman Republic at the height of its fame … The excitement of
this book lies in the knowledge that once the summit is reached, either of a
mountain or a civilisation, the trail leads downwards’
Beryl Bainbridge, Books of the Year
‘An excellent and extremely readable study of the last days of the Roman
republics’
John Bayley, Books of the Year
‘Ancient history often descends to us either through impregnable academic
works or the sword-and-sandal epics of the cinema. What Holland achieves is to
draw from both genres to write a modern, well-paced and finely observed history
which entertains as it informs’
Elizabeth Speller, Observer
‘The Republic won an empire, and destroyed itself in doing so. Tom Holland
tells the story of how this came about, and does so with splendid verve … His
writing is as pellucid as Macauley’s’
Allan Massie, Spectator
‘Engrossing … a lively narrative style … A thoroughly worthwhile and timely
project – an account of a formative period of Western history that manages to be
accessible and not over-simplified’
Harry Eyres, Daily Telegraph
‘A master of the telling detail … Rubicon is unrivalled in revealing the humbug
behind the cant and stripping Julius Caesar and company of their moral finery’
Frederic Raphael, Sunday Times
‘Tom Holland’s excellent new study of the fall of the Republic … reevaluating
Rome for a new generation’
Robert Harris, Sunday Times
‘For the student of contemporary politics as well as the classicist, Tom Holland’s
account of the last century or so of the Roman Republic is timely. It enables the
reader to re-live the slow, bloodstained collapse of a system, not only as a
fascinating drama in its own right, but as a morality tale … This gripping
narrative resurrects some of the half-forgotten personalities and events that
shaped who we are. In the light of the parallels between the two great imperial
republics, it can be recommended as an instructive beach-read for senior
politicians on both sides of the Atlantic’
Anthony Everitt, Independent
‘Fresh and vivid … Holland’s strength is as a narrative historian and there is no
better and clearer guide to the tangled political events of 100–44 BC … if a new
readership is to be won for ancient history, it is books like this that will pave the
way’
Frank McLynn, New Statesman
‘Rubicon … is no dry history: it is immensely readable, a perfect combination of
authoritative scholarship and racy narrative … all Holland’s people are real and
alive. Sometimes they even talk’
David Wishart, The Scotsman
‘Holland paints a vivid social portrait of the Roman world … Ideal bedside
reading for George W. Bush’
Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph
‘Explosive stuff … a seriously intelligent history of the late republic that
approximates as closely to the condition of the novel as should be allowed.
Concentrating on the characters, plotting their interactions, rise and fall with
considerable narrative skill, writing with élan and gusto … It is a history for our
times … One can see classicists like Paul Wolfowitz in the White House eagerly
seizing this book to find out how to deal with those tricky middle-easterners … a
wickedly enjoyable book and a very sharp “reading” of the late Roman republic’
Peter Jones, BBC History Magazine
‘Holland brings to vivid life the names found in thousands of schoolbooks …
and gives them both personality and relevance…. With authoritative prose, this
comes as recommended reading for those interested in the ancient world’
Good Book Guide
‘Always readable and often beautiful … essential reading for anyone interested
in ancient history. However, it also says more about our modern civilisation than
many books that more overtly address the contemporary political and social
issues … [Holland] blows the dust off an ancient civilisation, and shows that we
still have plenty to learn from the past’
Sunday Business Post
‘Holland brings a diverse cast of characters to life and in his descriptions of the
skullduggery, luxury and squalor of ancient Rome he’s marvellously
entertaining’
Evening Herald
‘Stunning … Rubicon is unusually well informed by any standard and
impressive for its large but not overwhelming cast of characters. The roster goes
well beyond the expected Marius and Sulla, Pompey and Crassus, Caesar and
Cicero. Look out for prototypical metrosexuals, high-class oyster purveyors,
overprivileged aristo table-dancers, back-alley prostitutes and a small army of
political bit players – mercifully, not all identified by name. Holland keeps his
narrative moving at chariot-race speed’
Corey Brennan, Newsday
COPYRIGHT
Published by Hachette Digital ISBN: 978-0-748-13105-1
Copyright © 2003 Tom Holland
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
www.hachette.co.uk
For Eliza.
Welcome to the world.
Contents
Praise
Copyright
Acknowledgements
List of Maps
Note on Proper Names
Preface
1 THE PARADOXICAL REPUBLIC
2 THE SIBYL’S CURSE
3 LUCK BE A LADY
4 RETURN OF THE NATIVE
5 FAME IS THE SPUR
6 A BANQUET OF CARRION
7 THE DEBT TO PLEASURE
8 TRIUMVIRATE
9 THE WINGS OF ICARUS
10 WORLD WAR
11 THE DEATH OF THE REPUBLIC
Timeline
Notes
Bibliography
Index
