Caesar Crosses the Rubicon
When Julius Caesar defied the Senate’s explicit order to resign his military command, he knew there could be no turning back.
49 BC
When Julius Caesar defied the Senate’s explicit order to resign his military command, he knew there could be no turning back.
49 BC
Success in the Gallic Wars (58-51 BC) made Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, a popular hero to the Republic. His bitter rival in the Senate, Pompey, found him increasingly difficult to handle, but on January 1st, 49 BC, Pompey managed to get the Senate to overrule the tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio, who had been blocking him at every turn, and require that Caesar lay down his military command.
ACCORDINGLY, when word came that the veto of the tribunes had been set aside and they themselves had left the city, he [Julius Caesar] at once sent on a few cohorts with all secrecy, and then, to disarm suspicion, concealed his purpose by appearing at a public show, inspecting the plans of a gladiatorial school which he intended building, and joining as usual in a banquet with a large company.
It was not until after sunset that he set out very privily with a small company, taking the mules from a bakeshop hard by and harnessing them to a carriage; and when his lights went out and he lost his way, he was astray for some time, but at last found a guide at dawn and got back to the road on foot by narrow by-paths.