Caesar crosses the Rubicon
Caesar leads a legion out of his province into Italy, beginning civil war. The traditional date of 10 January 49 BCE is calculated in the unreformed pre-Julian calendar and is not securely convertible. The structural fact matters more than the date: a professional army had become loyal to its paymaster-general rather than to the Senate, and no republican institution could countermand it.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Gaius Julius Caesar · person · Rome, Gaul, Egypt · not located
- The Roman Legion · military_formation · Frontier provinces, principally Rhine, Danube, Britain, Syria, North Africa · not located
- Rome · city · Italy
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Polybius, The Histories
A Greek hostage in Rome writing to explain how Rome conquered the Mediterranean in fifty-three years, Polybius supplies the main narrative of the first two Punic Wars and the classic analysis of the Roman constitution as a mixed regime. He is a near-contemporary but a partisan of his Roman patrons, and his fleet and casualty numbers are not independently checkable.
Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press (trans. W. R. Paton, rev. F. W. Walbank & C. Habicht) · written c. 150s-120s BCE; Loeb revision 2010-2012 · Partly verified
Polybius, Historiae, Books 1-6 and 38-39 (Loeb Classical Library 128, 137, 138, 159, 160, 161); Book 6 on the Roman constitution, Books 1-3 on the Punic Wars
Recorded on Gaius Julius Caesar
- Traditional foundation of the Roman Republic
- Construction of the Via Appia begins
- The Punic Wars
- The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
- Assassination of Julius Caesar
- Caesar crosses the Rubicon
- Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre
- The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent
- Construction of Hadrian's Wall begins
- The Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana)
- Dedication of Constantinople
- Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I
- Alaric's Goths sack Rome
- Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire · 0476-09-04
- Alaric's Goths sack Rome · 0410-08-24
- Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I · 0395
- Dedication of Constantinople · 0330-05-11
- The Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana) · 0212
- Construction of Hadrian's Wall begins · 0122
- The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent · 0117
- Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre · 0080