Rubicon by Tom Holland - History book or thinly veiled novel

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

I read the book two years ago thinking that I would read a historical book, but Tom Holland's Rubicon is a kind of book very close to McCullough's serie I think.

[Jona Lendering]

Holland's Rubicon is a kind of book very close to McCullough's serie I think.

But at least McCullough understands what she's doing. The first novels may contain a lot of fiction, but at least she knows the sequence of the voting procedures in the Comitia Centuriata, and other details like that.

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

Yes, McCullough is more serious, but what I mean is that they follow the historical chronology for develop her novel and I think that people think that it's an essay because that.

[Jona Lendering]

Yes, McCullough is more serious, but what I mean is that they follow the historical chronology for develop her novel and I think that people think that it's an essay because that.

I had never thought about that, but you're of course right.

[Timotheus]

Sounds like I wasted 15 bucks basically.

[Goffredo]

Timothy. JUST READ IT and make your own judgement. 8)

[Jona Lendering]

Sounds like I wasted 15 bucks basically.

"No book is so bad that you can not learn something from it" (Pliny the Elder).

Timothy. JUST READ IT and make your own judgement. 8)

Judging from Persian Fire, I prefer not to read Rubicon. Except for the fact that Persian Fire contains many errors, and one of them very serious (review again), I think it is poorly written and was fraudulently put on the market. Even if Rubicon were a good book, I would only grudgingly admit it - which says a lot about me, of course.

[Narukami]

I do not think you wasted your $15 -- certainly I do not believe I wasted either my money or, more importantly, my time in reading this book. However that is me and each must decide on their own how to spend their resources.

Just to add either some clarity or additional confusion to the discussion...

A sampling of reviews:


Enter historian and novelist Tom Holland. Rubicon is a lively, readable, briskly paced account of "the last years of the Roman Republic." It is also thoroughly grounded in the relevant source material, but it wears its erudition lightly—Holland correctly eschews extensive footnotes and source citations in the interest of maintaining the pace and intensity of his narrative. Students of Roman history will recognize the many threads of evidence woven together into what to the general reader will appear to be a seamless, forward-moving account. That account is essentially chronological, as befits a story of such complexity, punctuated by many successive dramatic episodes. At the same time, Holland makes sure his reader is informed about the basic attitudes and practices underpinning Roman society, from the class system and attitudes toward gender and sexuality to the political system and the legal frameworks of government and empire. Perhaps most importantly for a narrative history, Holland has a full (and often ironic) appreciation for the innate drama of his material, both substantive and anecdotal—offering, for example, an account of the sexual intrigue of the Bona Dea scandal worthy of any supermarket tabloid, as well as brilliant character portraits of major and minor figures in Roman politics, from Crassus to Pompey's father to Clodia Metelli, "the embodiment of [the] exclusive, if faintly sleazy, allure…of Baiae [a favorite Roman coastal resort]…wine-drenched, perfume-soused, a playground for every kind of ambition and perversion…." Who wouldn't want to read on?

On the level of popular history, then, Rubicon succeeds brilliantly. Nonetheless, it is fair to ask whether it achieves anything beyond the already significant accomplishment of making a distant and complex part of the past accessible for a general audience. In one important regard, the answer must be no: Rubicon does not advance any new or detailed analysis of why events unfolded as they did. Was the Roman constitution incapable of shouldering the burdens of empire? Did Romans secretly welcome the presence of political and military strongmen, in spite of their anxieties about monarchy and absolute power? Was Caesar so hungry for glory that no existing political arrangements could accommodate his ambitions? What exactly were his ambitions, anyway? Conversely, was Pompey—or even Crassus, had he lived longer—no less a "danger to the Republic" than Caesar? These are only a few of the many important interpretive questions about these decades, and it is unfortunate that Holland, while acknowledging their importance, does not offer a coherent or clearly articulated thesis of his own. His compelling narrative is weakened by the absence of a compelling argument.

Holland accomplishes something else, however, and does so brilliantly. We are living in an age when empire has become a subject of fashionable conversation again, when the example of Rome is frequently invoked in discussions of the nature and exercise of American power. Most such references are anecdotal and uninformed. They take into account neither the power of the Roman example in the framing of the American Constitution, nor the profound cultural and political differences separating a postmodern, nuclear power from a pre-modern, territorially based empire. Holland fully understands both the similarities and the differences. While his story is exclusively about Roman history and makes no pretenses to comparative analysis, he is aware of the provocative parallels. Section headings such as "The War Against Terror" and "Mutually Assured Destruction" signal this to readers, but Holland leaves it up to us to decide what his tale of imperial grandeur and political turmoil has to teach the present day. This reader, at least, often felt that he was reading an extended meditation on American power, refracted through a time far distant yet provocatively close. Rubicon therefore offers not only a gripping account of the Roman past, but an important perspective on the current American moment. The Ides of March may not be so remote from the Ides of September after all.

Ronald Cluett holds a Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University.



UK Kirkus review
Where histories of the Roman Empire must cover a millennium and more, Rubicon restricts itself to the lifetime of the Republic only - a mere 541 years, from 590 BC, when the monarchy fell, to 49 BC, the fateful year when Caesar, standing by the river that defined the limits of Rome, took the momentous decision to lead his army across, and declared himself sole ruler. Not that Republican Rome was ever a democratic paradise, of course. Tom Holland shows how 'freedom and egalitarianism, to the Romans, were very different things... for a citizen, the essence of life was competition, wealth and votes the accepted measures of success'. Slavery was the norm, and with it the bloody spectacle of gladiatorial combat. Poor Spartacus found himself alone among his followers in imagining a better world, as 'no one objected to the hierarchy of free and un-free, merely his own position within it'. Holland brings to life the names of a thousand schoolbooks - Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, Caesar - and gives them both personality and relevance. Indeed, the similarities with modern Western democracy extend beyond political structure and personality cults to lifestyle, fashion and food fads. Yet 'parallels can be deceptive'. The social and sexual mores of the Romans were vastly different, and we have no slavery, nor gladiatorial arenas, to speak of. Moreover, what appears to be a well-documented period in history is, Holland reminds us, the exclusive preserve of the powerful and privileged, as if a history of the Second World War 'relied solely upon the broadcasts of Hitler and the memoirs of Churchill'. His achievement is to set the chronological history of the Republic and its dominant figures against a vivid background of Roman life, as experienced by everyone, from the bottom up, albeit in markedly different ways. His prose is insightful and sardonic, fluid and authoritative. This is recommended reading for anyone interested in the ancient world. (Kirkus UK)



[size=150:20hfjec0]Rubicon: the triumph and tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland [/size]
Middle Eastern crises and political gridlock wrecked the superpower republic and ushered in the age of autocracy. Anthony Everitt is thrilled by the lessons of history, tabloid-style
Saturday, 30 August 2003

The tourist who visits the Roman Forum will find a piazza of flagstones and broken columns. This was where, 2,000 years ago, the politicians of the Roman Republic argued and orated; where the affairs of a great empire were settled; and where anyone could be bought, from a Senator to a rent boy. It is an open space, circled by hills but easy to access. Even today there is no entrance fee.
By contrast, it is a steep climb up the Palatine Hill, overlooking the Forum, and a ticket does have to be purchased. There, hidden away among pines, can still be found the house of Augustus, Rome's first Emperor and the man who destroyed the Republic.
Why did politics abandon the free-for-all of the valley and retreat uphill to the privacy of the palace? Why did the Republic find it so hard to run its empire? Since the more or less complete expulsion of the classics from the school curriculum, these questions have seemed of only academic interest. All at once, they have become sharply relevant.
For the first time since the days of Rome, another republic has become a world power, facing very much the same problems as those which Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great and Cicero failed to solve. Of course, there are as many differences between the first century BC and 21st century AD as similarities. But some echoes are intriguing: then as now the Middle East was the focus of foreign policy; a Jewish state was causing more trouble than its size warranted; Pontus on the Black Sea was the ancient equivalent of Iraq, and its aggressive king Mithridates the Saddam of his day. The Senate had to send expeditionary forces against him twice before finally effecting regime change.
More substantially, the American and Roman constitutions have much in common. Both represent a balance between monarchy, oligarchy and democracy. In Rome, the annual Consuls had regal power, moderated by the Senate and subject to the people's vote. In Washington, the triple structure repeats itself in the President, the Senate (where the democratic principle is diluted by the cost of election) and the House of Representatives. Both constitutions were, and are, much loved by citizens; no alternative was, or is, conceivable.
Nevertheless, thoughtful observers wonder whether states so constrained by checks and balances can muster the political will and the continuity that imperial responsibilities require. In ancient Rome, the answer was a resounding no.
It was the ruthless and enduring achievement of Augustus to create an invisible autocracy while maintaining all the due constitutional forms - an arrangement that preserved the Roman empire for hundreds of years. While no one supposes that an identical fate awaits the US if it insists on enforcing its global monopoly, it is possible to envisage the emergence of a state within a state - not so much an imperial monarchy as an imperial oligarchy.
So for the student of contemporary politics as well as the classicist, Tom Holland's account of the last century or so of the Roman Republic is timely. It enables the reader to re-live the slow, bloodstained collapse of a system, not only as a fascinating drama in its own right, but as a morality tale.
He makes an excellent job of a difficult task. Roman politics from the Gracchi in the second century BC to the launch of Augustus's principate in 27BC are formidably complicated. The stage is overcrowded and one scene follows another with bewildering speed. Although this is the best documented period in Roman history, interpretation can be difficult and scholars often cannot agree.
Holland's approach is to combine academic accuracy with the language and simplifying energy of a tabloid reporter. He has an acute eye for the telling detail, as when he quotes a disappointed lover's dismissal of Clodia, a great but louche political lady, as being "in the dining-room a cock-teaser, in the bedroom an ice-block"; or notes that Alexandria was the first city to have numbered addresses and boasted slot machines and automatic doors (but he does not say how these worked).
Holland sees through pretence. "Pompey's shows of simplicity," he remarks astutely of a politician who understood the uses of spin, "were always ostentatious". On Augustus's clemency at the end of civil wars which few of the old ruling class survived, he cites Seneca's lethal jibe: "I am reluctant to call mercy what was really the exhaustion of cruelty."
I have some cavils. No red-blooded red-top is frightened of a cliché, and Holland has a weakness for such weary phrases as "glory days", "heady stuff", and the like. Sometimes Rubicon reads like history as told by the editor of The Sun. More significantly, in the search for a clear and exciting storyline, incidents of some importance are underplayed or omitted, and more made of others than the evidence allows.
Caesar's unscrupulous prosecution of Rabirius, an inoffensive old senator, on a capital charge is not mentioned, although it was a key moment in his campaign against the Senate, and little account is given of the early career of the great but ferocious general, Marius. The teenage Mark Antony's alleged affair with a young noble is only a possibility when first described; but in later references innuendo slides into established fact.
Also, some of the leading actors are painted with rather too broad a brush and lack the contradictions of real life. Brutus appears in his Shakespearean guise as the noblest Roman of them all; no allusion is made to an embarrassing financial scam in which Cicero caught him out, nor to his tendency to align his conscience with his wishes. Bizarrely, Cato, that most principled but also most pig-headed of the Republic's defenders, is credited with "political acumen".
None of this greatly matters. Our present is our past, and this gripping narrative resurrects some of the half-forgotten personalities and events that shaped who we are. In the light of the parallels between the two great imperial republics, it can be recommended as an instructive beach-read for senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.
Anthony Everitt, author of 'Cicero: a turbulent life', is working on a biography of Augustus



Here are the links to these and a few other reviews:

http://www.dkennedy.org/C2025243227/E16 ... index.html

http://illadvised.blogspot.com/2005/11/ ... bicon.html

http://www.unrv.com/book-review/rubicon.php

http://www.curledup.com/rubicon.htm

http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2005 ... h-and.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 37471.html

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesw ... ku=5457826

http://www.claremont.org/publications/c ... detail.asp



And let me say once again, that I would be most interested in reading a review from Jona. He has an excellent command of the source material and a precise and incisive writing style. Of course asking him to invest time and energy in a book he is less than enthusiastic about is asking a lot of any person, but I thought I would ask all the same.

:wink:

Narukami

[Jona Lendering]

And let me say once again, that I would be most interested in reading a review from Jona. He has an excellent command of the source material and a precise and incisive writing style.

Well, I am flattered. But no - I am currently writing a book and do not even have time to read the newspapers...

[Epictetus]

This does not deal with Holland's Rubicon, but I found an interesting defence of "creative nonfiction" by Chairman of the Cambridge History Faculty John Hatcher. Note that he is defending his own book.

Indeed, it more closely resembles docudrama or creative nonfiction than traditional history, and it contains dialogue. But, as far as possible, the recreations are based on what is known to have happened, and the attitudes and ideas expressed by the characters are derived from what contemporary sources would lead us to expect...

I was encouraged in my writing by a number of supportive colleagues, friends and experts in this field, and who found the format that I had chosen threw welcome light on some important themes very poorly illuminated by surviving sources.

[Jona Lendering]

This does not deal with Holland's Rubicon, but I found an interesting defence of "creative nonfiction" by Chairman of the Cambridge History Faculty John Hatcher. Note that he is defending his own book.

Indeed, it more closely resembles docudrama or creative nonfiction than traditional history, and it contains dialogue. But, as far as possible, the recreations are based on what is known to have happened, and the attitudes and ideas expressed by the characters are derived from what contemporary sources would lead us to expect...

I was encouraged in my writing by a number of supportive colleagues, friends and experts in this field, and who found the format that I had chosen threw welcome light on some important themes very poorly illuminated by surviving sources.

He admits that it is fictional. Holland presents his book as history, suggesting that the book is reliable. There is a difference between creative nonfiction and bad nonfiction.

I am really p-ssed about the surge of recent, bad books; and I am a first row spectator, because people with questions inevitably come to Livius.Org.

People find it hard to see the line between fiction and non-fiction. The other day, there was a request if I knew a relative of Pausanias, mentioned by Herodotus or Diodorus, who was present at Plataea. I checked both sources, established that a man with the name that was mentioned did not exist, and told this. At that moment, the Wikipedia page had already been created; I suspect the man who had written me had believed that a novel had been well-researched.

And the errors are seeping back into official scholarship - see this review. The author has a Ph.D. and I suspect he is behind at least one e-mail message that was recently sent to me. The National Geographic has in last month's Persia issue repeated old propaganda; fortunately, they are checking what went wrong (but their fact checker is on pregnancy leave or something).

In 2006-2007, I received about TWO HUNDRED messages because of one single book, written by a Dutch professor, which contained no less than 250 factual errors. We work for the same publisher, who told me that the professor has three times refused to improve his text.

As far as I am concerned: it does matter to have the facts right. If a scholar uses fiction to evoke something, and indicates where the fictional parts start, that's fine with me. In the other parts, the facts must be correct.

An interesting book: Damian Thompson, Counter-knowledge. How we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake history (2008, Atlantic books, London).

[size=75:1eh552gr]<Edit: improved link>[/size]

[Narukami]

In the Bibliographical Notes to his own book, Rome: Empire of the Eagles, Neil Faulkner had this to say about Tom Holland's Rubicon:

"T. Holland's Rubicon has been deservedly praised: when has Roman history ever been such a compelling and convincing read?"


Of course, this is just another reader's opinion and each of us must decide for ourselves how best to spend our reading time as precious as it is for all of us.

:wink:

Narukami

[Sean Manning]

I read it, and I thought it was good. I don't recall any errors, although he spent longer than I would have liked speculating about the cultural significance of fish-farms to Roman gentlemen. A classics professor I know recommended it as an introduction to Republican history, because it is broad ranging and easy to read.

I haven't touched "Persian Fire" due to Jona's review.

[Jona Lendering]

I haven't touched "Persian Fire" due to Jona's review.

Ha! One day, I will be a much feared literary critic who can make and break reputations. Literary pantheon, here I come! :wink:

[Blah]

MADNESS!

It was an excellent book. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone.

A friend of mine starting flicking through Rubicon one night in my house while I showered. When I came out he asked to borrow it. Surprised (as he does not read any history or show an interest in it) I said of course.

A week later he was ranting, bright eyed about Rome, the republic, Cato, Cicero, Caesar, the civil wars and told me he had ordered goldsworthys Caesar from amazon and asked if I had any more books on the Romans.

This was from a man who previously showed NO interest in history.

If you cannot enjoy this book, it is your loss.

As it says in the preface:
"The reader should take it as a rule of thumb that many statements of fact in theis book could plausibly be contradicted by an opposite interpretation. This is not a consel of despair. Rather, it is a necessary preface to a narrative that has been pieced together from broken shards, but in such a way as to conceal some of the obvious joins and gaps."

"After a spell in the dog house. Narritive history is now squarely back in fashion. Even if, as many have argued, it can only function by imposing upon the random events of the past an artificial pattern."