Rubicon

This article is about a river. For other meanings see: Rubicon (disambiguation)

Presumed course of the Rubicon

The Rubicon (Rubico, in Italian Rubicone) is an ancient Latin name for a small river in northern Italy. In Roman times it flowed into the Adriatic Sea between Ariminum and Caesena. The actual modern identity of the water-course is uncertain, it is usually identified as the Pisciatello in its upper reaches and then the Fiumicino to the sea.

The river is notable as Roman law forbade any general from crossing it with a standing army. The river was considered to mark the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and the Roman heartland to the south; the law thus protected the republic from internal military threat.

When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, supposedly on January 10 of the Roman calendar, in pursuit of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus he broke that law and made armed conflict inevitable. According to Suetonius he uttered the famous phrase 'the die is cast'.Template:Fn Suetonius also described how Caesar was apparently still undecided as he approached the river, and the author gave credit for the actual moment of crossing to a supernatural apparition.

The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" has survived to refer to any person committing himself irrevocably to a risky course of action.

Notes

Template:FnbLives of the Caesars 'Divus Julius' sect. 32. Suetonius gives the Latin version, iacta alea est, although according to Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Caesar quoted a line from the playwright Menander: anerriphthô kubos, or 'let the dice be cast'. Suetonius' subtly different translation is often misquoted as alea iacta est. Alea was a game played with a die or dice rather than the actual dice themselves, so another translation might be "The game is afoot".

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Caesar's "alea" is actually singular, so the translation is "the DIE IS cast" rather than "the dice are cast."

RUBICON RIVER TODAY

The troubled identification

After Caesar’s crossing, the Rubicon went on to be a river of wide importance only for few years, until imperator Augustus abolished the Province of Gallia Cisalpina (today’s northern Italy) in 42 B.C, and the river ceased to be the extreme border line of Italy. Augustus’ decision brought the Rubicon to lost great part of its importance, and this led to move off the memory about its real identification, and every evidence of the name “Rubicon” in local toponymy. After Roman Empire fall, and during first centuries of Middle Ages, the coastal plane between Ravenna and Rimini was flooded for many times, and the Rubicon, together with other small rivers of the region, changed variously its low course. For this reason, and also for supplying fields of water after revival of agriculture after Middle Ages, during 14th and 15th centuries hydraulic works were done to prevent other floods and to regulate streams. This resulted to design the course of these rivers in a straight line shape, as for artificial channels, and that’s what we can see today. Because of this uncertainty, during centuries some rivers of italian adriatic coast between Ravenna and Rimini have claimed to be identified with ancient Rubicon; all of these have maintained the same course since Caesar’s times only upstream one, running in hilly part of region. We can also observe that Emilia road (today’s National Road N°9), making a border between hills and plane, is still that of Roman age for the majority of its length. Consequently, attempts to rebuild the original layout of the Rubicon can be done, at present, only studying written documents and other archaeological evidences (as Roman milestones) showing us the distance between the ancient river and nearest Roman towns. It’s important to underline that the starting point of Roman roads (some kind of “mile zero”), from which distances were counted, was always the crossing between Cardo and Decumanum, the two basic streets in every Roman town, running respectively W-E and N-S. The most important document showing us the position of cities during Roman age, the net of roads connecting them and their distances, is the so-called Tabula Peutingeriana, a picted map of 4th century A.C., come to us in a medieval copy now in Wien. In its part referring to north-eastern Italy, a river called “fl. Rubico” is marked at 12 miles north from Rimini following the coastline, and 12 miles is the distance between Rimini and the place called “Ad confluentes”, drawn W of Rubicon, on Emilia road. After centuries of struggles, in 1933 the river called Fiumicino, acrossing the town of Savignano di Romagna (now Savignano sul Rubicone) was officially identified as former Rubicon. The final proof came only in 1991, when three Italian scholars (Pignotti, Ravagli and Donati), after a comparison between Tabula Peutingeriana and other ancient sources (including Cicero), showed that the distance running from Rome to Rubicon river was 200 miles. The focal points of the work are followings: 1) the locality of San Giovanni in Compito (now a western quarter of Savignano) has to be identified with old Ad Confluentes (“compito” means confluence of roads and it’s a synonymous of “confluentes”); 2) the distance between Ad Confluentes and Rome, according the Tabula Peutingeriana, is 201 miles; 3) the distance from today’s San Giovanni in Compito and Fiumicino river is 1 mile (km 1,47), according to ancient sources.

The work has definitely confirmed the official identification of 1933, which had brought to give the Fiumicino the name of Rubicone, as far as now.

The Rubico in XXI century

Today, for people visiting the Rubicon and its surroundings, there are very few evidences of Caesar’s historical passage; Savignano sul Rubicone is an industrial town, like others wet by the river. Many big farms (chicken meat processing, shoes making…) have brought in recent decades the river to become one of most polluted in Emilia-Romagna region. The intense exploiting of underground waters in the upper course of Rubicon, together with natural drying of its spring, have led to cut down its stream, yet little during Roman times (“parvi Rubiconis ad undas” as Lucan said). For this reason, from Emilia road (crossing it at Savignano) to the sea, the Rubicon has lost great part of its natural face, only preserving it in its upper course, between low and woody hills. The mouth is probably the place where the historical passage occurred, because Caesar was travelling with his soldiers from Ravenna to Rimini, which were (and are now) both on the sea. The location of mouth along the coast must still be the same as Roman times, 12 miles (17 km) north than Rimini. The sandy and wild coast crossed by Caesar is now one of most crowded tourist regions of Italy, with beaches attracting millions of people every summer. What must be the right place of historical crossing, today’s locality of Gatteo Mare, has no more evidence witnessing the event and surrounds the river with modern hotel and shops.