The Roman-built stone bridge over the Rubicon marking the spot where Caesar’s troops allegedly crossed in the small hours of 10th January 49 BC © Carole Raddato.
The Rubicon is a small river, or stream in northeastern Italy which flowed into the Adriatic Sea, and marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. It achieved everlasting fame when in 49 BC Julius Caesar and his legions crossed it, and marched on the town of Ariminum, therby triggering a civil war with Rome.
The following is an article written by Carole Raddato in 2016 and published on the World History et cetera – Thinking with History website
On 10th January in 49 BC, Julius Caesar and his troops famously crossed the Rubicon, the river marking the boundary between the province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. Taking the 13th Legion over this forbidden frontier constituted an act of treason and triggered civil war in Rome. According to the historian Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est (“the die is cast”).
Plutarch says that Caesar had eight legions in Gaul, but when he learned late on January 7, 49 BC, that the senatus consultum ultimum had branded him an enemy of the state, he only had one legion with him in Ravenna; he had summoned another two from inside Gaul, but they were on the march and still too far away. The one legion he had, the XIII, with 5,000 legionaries and 300 cavalry, was not large, but Caesar knew that he had widespread support among the lower classes, or populares, of Rome, and he believed that a general was as dependent on luck as he was tactics, and he was convinced that good luck (fortuna) was on his side. Therefore, on January 11 he and the XIII departed camp and marched 25 miles to the Rubicon River, the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy.’
Plutarch continues:
Chapter 32. Now, Caesar had with him not more than three hundred horsemen and five thousand legionaries; for the rest of his army had been left beyond the Alps, and was to be brought up by those whom he had sent for the purpose. He saw, however, that the beginning of his enterprise and its initial step did not require a large force at present, but must take advantage of the golden moment by showing amazing boldness and speed, since he could strike terror into his enemies by an unexpected blow more easily than he could overwhelm them by an attack in full force. He therefore ordered his centurions and other officers, taking their swords only, and without the rest of their arms, to occupy Ariminum, a large city of Gaul, avoiding commotion and bloodshed as far as possible; and he entrusted this force to Hortensius.
Plutarch
He himself spent the day in public, attending and watching the exercises of gladiators; but a little before evening he bathed and dressed and went into the banqueting hall. Here he held brief converse with those who had been invited to supper, and just as it was getting dark rose and went away, after addressing courteously most of his guests and bidding them await his return. To a few of his friends, however, he had previously given directions to follow him, not all by the same route, but some by one way and some by another. He himself mounted one of his hired carts and drove at first along another road, then turned towards Ariminum. When he came to the river which separates Cisalpine Gaul from the rest of Italy (it is called the Rubicon), and began to reflect, now that he drew nearer to the fearful step and was agitated by the magnitude of his ventures, he checked his speed. Then, halting in his course, he communed with himself a long time in silence as his resolution wavered back and forth, and his purpose then suffered change after change. For a long time, too, he discussed his perplexities with his friends who were present, among whom was Asinius Pollio, estimating the great evils for all mankind which would follow their passage of the river, and the wide fame of it which they would leave to posterity. But finally, with a sort of passion, as if abandoning calculation and casting himself upon the future, and uttering the phrase with which men usually prelude their plunge into desperate and daring fortunes, ‘Let the die be cast,’ he hastened to cross the river; and going at full speed now for the rest of the time, before daybreak he dashed into Ariminum and took possession of it. It is said, moreover, that on the night before he crossed the river he had an unnatural dream; he thought, namely, that he was having incestuous intercourse with his own mother.
Three rivers in north-east Italy were successively thought to be the historical Rubicon; the Pisciatello, Fiumicino and Uso rivers. It was not until 1933 that the Fiumicino, which crossed the town of Savignano di Romagna (renamed Rubicone by Mussolini), was identified as the former Rubicon. This theory was not proven until some 58 years later in 1991 when three Italian scholars, using the Tabula Peutingeriana – a medieval copy of a Roman road map – and various ancient sources, were able to prove the location of the original Rubicon. The distance given in the Tabula of 12 miles from Ariminum (modern-day Rimini), coincides exactly with the distance of the Fiumicino from that city.
Today, if you want to cross the Rubicon, you need to go to Italy in the Region of Emilia-Romagna, in Savignano sul Rubicone which is located halfway between Cesena and Rimini, along the Via Emilia and the Bologna-Rimini railway. The most famous monument of the city is of course the three-arched Roman bridge (26 m long and 6 m wide) which recalls this historical event.
However the bridge does not date to Caesar’s time. In his De Vita Caesarum (1.31.6), Suetonius, who served briefly as secretary to Hadrian, reports the following Julius Caesar’s words: “Even yet we may draw back; but once cross yon little bridge, and the whole issue is with the sword.” The small bridge (ponticulum) of Caesar was most likely made of wood. The exact date of construction of the current bridge is unknown but probably dates from the era of Augustus or Tiberius.
Over the past centuries the old bridge underwent various modifications and alterations but the worst damages were made by the retreating German army in 1944, when they mined the pillars of the bridge. The reconstruction of the bridged started in the 1960s and was completed in 2005.
During Caesar’s time, the river Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north-east and Italy proper. After Caesar’s crossing, the Rubicon remained a geographical feature of note until about 42 BC, when Octavian merged the Province of Cisalpine Gaul into Italia and the river ceased to be the extreme northern border of Italy.
After crossing the river, Caesar advanced to Ariminum (modern-day Rimini), the first city outside his province. Tradition dictates that Ariminum’s forum was the scene for Julius Caesar’s famous speech to his soldiers when he uttered the words “alea jacta est”. In Rimini, a monument in Piazza Tre Martiri marks the place where Caesar allegedly harangued his troops.
The inscription reads: Gaius Caesar, dictator, after crossing the Rubicon during the civil war, addressed his fellow soldiers here in the forum of Ariminum.
The square, once named Piazza Giulio Cesare in Caeasar’s honour, also has a bronze statue. Mussolini donated a statue of Caesar to the town of Rimini in 1933 (not the one which currently stands), similar to that shown in Rome along the Fori Imperiali. The statue was placed at the foot of Rimini’s tower clock and each year on the Ides of March local fascist organisations would parade.
At some stage before the liberation of Rimini, the local authorities took the statue away and buried it in a ditch on the Northern outskirts of the town. The original statue was re-discovered from its hiding place in the 1950s but was immediately taken into the custody of the military authorities who placed it in the Giulio Cesare barracks, where it still remains. Finally a copy of the statue was made and placed in the corner of the square.
The name of the Piazza was changed from Piazza Giulio Cesare to its current name Piazza Tre Martiri, in honour of the three young partisans fighting for the resistance, Luigi Nicolò, Adelio Pagliarani, and Mario Capelli who were hanged publicly in the square on August 16 1944. Before being executed, all three shouted ‘Long live Stalin’. Their bodies were left hanging for three days as a warning, before being buried in the municipal cemetery.
by Carole Raddato
Carole Raddato’s favourite hobby is travelling and for the last 8 years she has taken a huge interest in the history of the ancient world. She is particularly interested in everything related to the emperor Hadrian whom she finds fascinating. He was himself an incessant traveller, visiting every province in the Empire during his reign.
References:
Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919
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