Yet alien as it was, the Republic still holds up a mirror to us. Tom Holland brings to life this strange and unsettling civilization, with its extremes of ambition and self-sacrifice, bloodshed and desire. This was the century of Julius Caesar, the gambler whose addiction to glory led him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond of Cicero, whose defence of freedom would make him a byword for eloquence of Spartacus, the slave who dared to challenge a superpower of Cleopatra, the queen who did the same. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness – the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. Bloody and labyrinthine political intrigue and struggle, brilliant oratory, amazing feats of conquest and cruelty’ Ian McEwan, Books of the Year, Guardian ‘The Book that really held me, in fact, obsessed me, was Rubicon.
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