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The modern Rubicon river (dark blue), believed to be the same river crossed by Caesar. The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" is an idiom that means "passing a point of no return". [1] Its meaning comes from allusion to the crossing of the river Rubicon from the north by Julius Caesar in early January 49 BC. The exact date is unknown. [2]
Crossing the Rubicon, Suetonius claims Caesar exclaimed alea iacta est ("the die is cast"), though Plutarch maintains Caesar spoke in Greek quoting the poet Menander with anerriphtho kubos ("ἀνερρίφθω κύβος", "let the die be thrown"); [37] Caesar's own commentaries do not mention the Rubicon at all. [38]
After Caesar's crossing, the Rubicon was a geographical feature of note until about 42 BC, when Octavian merged the Province of Cisalpine Gaul into Italia and the river ceased to be the extreme northern border of Italy. The decision robbed the Rubicon of its importance, and the name gradually disappeared from the local toponymy.
With Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in January 49 BC, he plunged the Roman Republic into civil war with a clique of Roman senators who were determined to destroy him, under the military leadership of Pompey. [1]
On 10 January 49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon river (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war. Upon crossing the Rubicon, Plutarch reports that Caesar quoted the Athenian playwright Menander in Greek, saying anerrhiphthō kubos (ἀνερρίφθω κύβος; let the dice be tossed). [33]
A Roman die, made from lead. Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") is a variation of a Latin phrase (iacta alea est [ˈjakta ˈaːlɛ.a ˈɛs̺t]) attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on 10 January 49 BC, as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy, in defiance of the Roman Senate and beginning a long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates.
Starting in 49 BC, Julius Caesar had crossed the Rubicon and started a civil war in the Roman republic.Starting in January with a lightning advance against the Pompeian and senatorial forces in Italy, Pompey withdrew across the Adriatic for Rome's eastern provinces. [4]
Escalating tensions over the previous decade between Gaius Julius Caesar and the Roman Senate, rallying around Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great"), culminated in Caesar crossing the Rubicon river in January 49 BC and thus being labelled as an enemy of the people. [1]