Book Review: Tom Holland published "Rubicon: The Last Year of the Roman Republic."

In 2003, Tom Holland published "Rubicon: The Last Year of the Roman Republic." This book has eleven chapters. 

What does Rubicon mean? An act of winning a game against an opponent whose total score is less than 100, in which case the loser's score is added to rather than subtracted from the winner's.

What does it mean crossing Rubicon? Irrevocably commit to a course of action, make a fateful and final decision. For example, Once he submitted his resignation, he had crossed the Rubicon. This phrase alludes to Julius Caesar's crossing the Rubicon River (between Italy and Gaul) in 49 b.c., thereby starting a war against Pompey and the Roman Senate.

Is there a body of water Rubicon? The Latin word Rubico comes from the adjective rubeus, meaning "red." The river was so named because its waters are colored red by mud deposits.

During the Roman Republic, the river Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the northeast and Italy proper, controlled directly by Rome and its socii (allies), to the south. On the northwestern side, the river Arno border, a much broader and more critical waterway, flows westward from the Apennine Mountains (it and the Rubicon rise not far from each other) Tyrrhenian Sea.

Julius Caesar paused on the banks of the Rubicon. In 49 BC, perhaps on January 10, Julius Caesar led a single legion XIII Gemina, south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome. In doing so, he deliberately broke the law limiting his imperium, making armed conflict inevitable. Suetonius depicts Caesar as undecided as he approached the river and attributes the crossing to a supernatural apparition. It was reported that Caesar dined with Sallust, Hirtius, Gaius Oppius, Lucius Cornelius Balbus, and Servius Sulpicius Rufus on the night after his crossing.

What is a triumvirate? A triumvirate is a political regime ruled or dominated by three powerful individuals known as triumvirs. The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three are notionally equal, this is rarely the case in reality. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all claim to be the sole leader.

Originally, triumviri were special commissions of three men appointed for specific administrative tasks apart from Roman magistrates' regular duties. For instance, the triumviri capitals oversaw prisons and executions, along with other functions that, as Andrew Lintott notes, show them to have been "a mixture of police superintendents and justices of the peace." The capitals were first established around 290 to 287 BC. The praetor Urbanus supervised them. These triumviri, or the tresviri nocturni, may also have taken some responsibility for fire control. The triumviri mentalis ("triumviri of the temple of Juno the Advisor" or "monetary triumvirs") supervised the issuing of Roman coins.

Three-person commissions were also appointed to establish colonies (triumviri coloniae deducendae) or distribute land. Triumviri mensarii served as public bankers; the full range of their financial functions in 216 BC, when the commission included two men of consular rank, has been debated. Another form of three-person commission was the tresviri epulones, who were in charge of organizing public feasts on holidays. This commission was created in 196 BC by a tribunician law on behalf of the people, and their number was later increased to seven (septemviri epulones). 

The term is most commonly used by historians to refer to the First Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Pompey the Great. The Second Triumvirate of Octavians later Caesar Augustus, Mark Antoney, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

Caesar had served the Republic for eight years in the Gallic Wars, fully conquering Gaul's region (roughly equivalent to modern-day France). After the Roman Senate demanded Caesar disband his army and return home as a civilian, he refused. He crossed the Rubicon River with his army and plunging Rome into Caesar's Civil War in 49 BC. After defeating the last of the opposition, Caesar was appointed "dictator in perpetuity" in early 44 BC.

Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, was assassinated by a group of senators on the Ides of March (15 March) of 44 BC during a Senate meeting at Pompey's Theatre in Rome. The senators stabbed Caesar 23 times. The senators claimed to be acting over fears that Caesar's unprecedented concentration of power during his dictatorship undermined the Roman Republic and presented the deed as an act of tyrannicide. At least 60 senators were party to the conspiracy, led by Marcus Brutus, Gaius Cassius, and Decimus Brutus. Despite the death of Caesar, the conspirators were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic. The assassination's ramifications led to the Liberators' civil war and ultimately to the Principate period of the Roman Empire.