Don Ready’s Reviews > Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic > Status Update

“The fruit of too much liberty is slavery” had been the mournful judgment of Cicero—and who was to say that his own generation, the last of a free Republic, had not proved it true? But the fruit of slavery? That was for a new generation, and a new age, to prove.”

Excerpt From
Rubicon
Tom Holland

“A century later, fleets weighed down with ravening exotica would be seen as the perfect symbol of the Republic’s new global reach. “The padding tiger, shipped in a golden cage, lapping at human blood, applauded by the crowds. So wrote Petronius, Nero’s master of ceremonies, summing up an age.”

Excerpt From
Rubicon
Tom Holland

“His wealth was beyond the dreams of avarice—even of Crassus himself. His glory was so dazzling as to blot out every rival. Could a Roman become the new Alexander while also remaining a citizen? In the last resort only Pompey himself could answer this question—but there were plenty, as they waited for him, prepared to fear the worst.”

Excerpt From
Rubicon
Tom Holland

“After tying him to an ass and parading him through jeering crowds, Mithridates next ordered some treasure melted down. When all had been prepared, Aquillius’s head was jerked back, his mouth forced open, and the molten metal poured down his throat. “Warmongers against every nation, people and king under the sun, the Romans have only one abiding motive—greed, deep-seated, for empire and riches.”

“One superpower would rule supreme. But this would bring no dawning of a universal peace. Far from it. Instead, it would be the Romans’ fate to surfeit on their own greatness. “They will sink into a swamp of decadence: men will sleep with men, and boys will be pimped in brothels; civil tumults will engulf them, and everything will fall into confusion and disorder. The world will be filled with evils.”

“Travelers approaching Rome by this route would see bones littering the sides of the road. It was a cursed and dreadful spot, the haunt of witches, who were said to strip flesh from the corpses and summon the naked specters of the dead from their mass graves. In Rome the indignities of failure could outlive life itself.”

Excerpt From
Rubicon
Tom Holland