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The
Rubicon Identity
Rubicon (Rubico, in Italian Rubicon) is the ancient
Latin name of a small river in northern Italy.
The Roman law forbade any general from crossing
it with a standing army. The river was considered
the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine
Gaul and the Roman heartland; the law thus protected
the republic from internal military threat.
When Julius Caesar crossed the river in 49 BC,
supposedly on January 10 of the Roman calendar,
in pursuit of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus he broke
that law and made armed conflict inevitable. According
to Suetonius, the great historian, he uttered
the famous phrase 'the die is cast'. |
