Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Julius Caesar just before crossing the Rubicon, when he is supposed to have uttered the phrase. 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 ...
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.
Political tension increased, and two years later, in 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, precipitating the Roman Civil War of 49–45 BC, which he won. After having been elected consul for each of the years of the civil war, and appointed to several temporary dictatorships , he was finally made dictator perpetuus (dictator for life), by the ...
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]
After this, if he did not triumph, he would be executed. Therefore, the term "the Rubicon" is used as a synonym to the "point of no return". " alea iacta est" ("The die is cast"), which is reportedly what Caesar said at the crossing of the Rubicon. This metaphor comes from gambling with dice: once the die or dice have been thrown, all bets are ...
Caesar's civil war (49–45 BC) was a civil war during the late Roman Republic between two factions led by Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey). The main cause of the war was political tensions relating to Caesar's place in the republic on his expected return to Rome on the expiration of his governorship in Gaul.
The opening line of the song ("I crossed the Rubicon on the 14th day of the most dangerous month of the year") is interesting in that it references not the day Caesar actually did cross the Rubicon river (which was the 10th of January) but rather, according to Richard F. Thomas, the 14th day of "what for Julius Caesar was emphatically the most ...