In less than a decade he had forced the surrender of eight hundred cities, three hundred tribes and the whole of Gaul - and yet excessive achievement, to the Romans might be a cause for alarm as well as celebration.
This, to the Romans, was the very mark of a man. 'Time and again Caesar had hazarded his future - and time and again he had emerged triumphant. As Holland describes it, 'so fateful was Caesar's crossing the Rubicon that it has come to stand for every fateful step taken since'. Holland's is a story of intrigue, triumph, cruelty and violence, an exciting retelling of a moment in history that still echoes with significance. It is also a state 'as unsettlingly familiar as it is strange' - its citizens enjoyed all-night dances, were intrigued by the cult of celebrity and had a fascination for unusual pets. Holland pictures Rome as a disciplined and ambitious predator, a state willing to commit acts of shocking barbarism to preserve its freedom. Here, legendary historical figures are brought thrillingly to life, from eloquent Cicero and wily Cleopatra to brave Spartacus, the slave who dared to stand against the mighty superpower.
Placing the reader in the midst of the action, Holland tells the story of Caesar and his generation, which was to witness the twilight of the Republic and its bloody transformation into an empire. In 49 BC, 704 years since the founding of Rome, Julius Caesar (then a Roman general and governor of Gaul) crossed a small river in the north of Italy called the Rubicon and knowingly plunged Rome into civil war.
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