Of the thousands of nations that have risen and fallen in human history, only a special few have shaken off the yoke of mediocrity to expand into superpowers, states of unrivaled might capable of engendering fear and envy in all those who must consort and compete with them. These superpowers, past and present, have left legacies of culture and science, industry and technology, that have nourished their descendants. However, they have left behind warnings as well, stories of economic, political and personal excess that helped to ignite their downfalls.
Perhaps each superpower is unique unto itself, a singular entity enlivened by a singular people and plagued by singular problems, in which case autopsying the corpses of past superpowers is pointless. But what if all superpowers are fundamentally the same? They are, after all, populated and driven by humans, animals with the same genes, the same evolutionary histories, the same weaknesses. If they are all fundamentally the same, then history is endowed with powers to predict the future. In which case, current superpowers should take note of Mr. Holland's Rubicon for it has encapsulated the fall of freedom.
Though Rome managed to remain a republic for more than five centuries before collapsing into empire, its ultimate and destructive fate, argues Mr. Holland, a British author, was written into its very nature. Rome was founded on the notion that no one man is worthy of divine or monarchical exultation, that, while talent may be found to run deeper in some than in others, the most that man may aspire to be is first among his fellows. To reach any higher is to invite both tyranny and the wrath of the gods. This idea sustained Rome for centuries, working well enough to keep the republic alive. But when a succession of foreign enemies troubled Rome, causing its leading lights to adopt increasingly desperate measures to counter what they considered to be existential threats, this noble idea was first tested and then shattered by the desire among Romans for a hero to arise and save the republic in its darkest hours.
In the last 200 years of the Roman republic, many men vied for the honor of being Rome's savior. First came the Gracchi, brothers who attempted to reform Rome from within its existing institutions. But when the system stifled them, it fell to Rome's military heros to bring change. Marius and Sulla fought for and over Rome, causing a bloody civil war that laid down an example of dictatorial rule that Pompey Magnus and Julius Caesar happily followed. Sixty years of bloody, internal conflict, of plots and counter plots, of dictators and disbanded senates that finally culminated in the assassination of Julius Caesar, the end of the republic and the rise of a new Rome under Augustus, its last savior. These events leave us with one unavoidable conclusion; those who fought to save the Republic ended up destroying it.
Rubicon is a vivid history of the final century and a half of the Roman Republic told through the deeds of its prime movers. Mr. Holland's lively prose keeps the reader thoroughly engaged while he conveys a wealth of information on Rome's culture and customs, its religions and institutions, its seductions and its sins. He pleasingly balances the portraits of his Roman actors against the kings and rebels who threatened them from every side. But perhaps his greatest achievement, here, is in conveying the extent to which Romans eventually lost faith in their government and their constitution.
We hold our most treasured laws to be sacred and inviolate because to break them is to end their power forever. If the rule of law is suspended even once, the people will never be the same. For even when the rule of law is restored, they will not believe in it for they know that whenever the next crisis strikes, the rule of law will be suspended once more and they will suffer the consequences. There are certain truths and ideals that cannot be trampled without being broken. Unfortunately for Rome, powerful aristocrats, glory-seeking military heroes, and the corrupted politicians who enabled them both, succeeded in trampling all of Rome's sacred ideals. In doing so, they fractured their republic into warring factions while simultaneously draining away the people's faith in her institutions. War, death, decay, dissolution... Societies cannot exist without the faith of its citizens.
Though this is history at its grimmest, it is lively and superbly told. Mr. Holland does breeze over some of the more earth shattering events in Rome's final decades, but an excellent primer for anyone seeking to understand why Rome is so often compared to the United States. Similarities abound... Well-done. (4/5 Stars)
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