The Die Is Cast

Reported by Suetonius in Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Divus Julius, 32), spoken as Caesar crossed the Rubicon river with the Thirteenth Legion in January 49 BC. The Rubicon marked the legal boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper; crossing it with an army was an act of war against the Roman Senate. Suetonius records that Caesar may have originally quoted the line in Greek (anerriphtho kubos) — a phrase from the comic playwright Menander — before ordering the march forward. The crossing ignited the civil war that ended the Roman Republic.