Two thousand years may have passed, but we remain the Romans' heirs. Publication date 2004 Topics Social conditions, Rome - History - Republic, 265-30 B.C, Rome - Social conditions - 510-30 B.

Its citizens were obsessed by celebrity chefs, all-night dancing and exotic pets they fought elections in law courts and were addicted to spin they toppled foreign tyrants in the name of self-defence. By Tom Holland Review by Alice (Classics) When I started A Levels I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do Economics at uni, which was a new and exciting subject for me, or stick with Classics, which was my favourite subject but one that I wasn’t sure would still interest me for another three or four years. and its bloody transformation into an empire. Tom Holland s enthralling account tells the story of Caesar s generation, witness to the twilight of the Republic. Yet alien as it was, the Republic still holds up a mirror to us. In 49 B.C., the seven hundred fifth year since the founding of Rome, Julius Caesar crossed a small border river called the Rubicon and plunged Rome into cataclysmic civil war. 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. Tom Holland, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic 3 likes Like When scholars in Europe sought to justify the Spanish conquest of the New World, they reached not for the Church Fathers, but for Aristotle. 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.

Rubicon by Tom Holland