Rubicon
het einde van de Romeinse Republiek
-
- 5,99 €
-
- 5,99 €
Publisher Description
Toen Julius Caesar op een donkere ochtend in januari met zijn leger het grensriviertje de Rubicon overstak, onder het uitspreken van de woorden `de teerling is geworpen , ontketende hij een van de beroemdste burgeroorlogen uit de geschiedenis.
Rubicon is een scherpzinnig, briljant geschreven en uitstekend gedocumenteerd verslag van hoe een grootse beschaving van republiek tot keizerrijk werd. Tom Holland vertelt ons het fascinerende verhaal van de val van de Romeinse republiek, beginnend bij de periode waarin de latere hoofdpersonen opgroeien: Caesar, Cicero, Cleopatra, Brutus, Pompeius, Augustus en vele anderen.
Een boek voor alle liefhebbers van spannende geschiedenis en alle kijkers van de met lof overladen serie Rome. In Engeland werd Rubicon ogenblikkelijk een besteller.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After a palace coup demolished the reign of King Tarquin of Rome in 509 B.C., a republican government flourished, providing every person an opportunity to participate in political life in the name of liberty. As Holland, a novelist and adapter of Herodotus' Histories for British radio, points out in this lively re-creation of the republic's rise and fall, the seeds of destruction were planted in the very soil in which the early republic flourished. It was more often members of the patrician classes who had the resources to achieve political success. Such implicit class distinctions in an ostensibly classless society also gave rise to a new group of rulers who acted like monarchs. Holland chronicles the rise to power of such leaders as Sulla Felix, Pompey, Cicero and Julius Caesar. Some of these leaders, such as Pompey, appealed to the masses by expanding the republic through military conquest; others, like Cicero, worked to reinforce class distinctions. Holland points to the suppression of the Gracchian revolution a series of reforms in favor of the poor pushed by the Gracchus brothers in the second century B.C. as the beginning of the end of the republic, providing the context into which Julius Caesar would step with his own attempts to save the republic. As Holland points out, Caesar actually precipitated civil wars and helped to reestablish an imperial form of government in Rome. With the skill of a good novelist, Holland weaves a rip-roaring tale of political and historical intrigue as he chronicles the lively personalities and problems that led to the end of the Roman republic. Maps.
