View source for Rubicon

{{Short description|River in northeastern Italy}}
{{About|the Italian river||Rubicon (disambiguation)|and|Rubicon River (disambiguation)}}
{{Redirect|Rubico}}
{{Infobox river
| name              = Rubicon
| native_name       ={{native name|it|Rubicone}}
| name_other        = {{langx|rgn|Rubicôn|italic=no}}
| image             = Foce rubicone 1 by Stefano Bolognini.JPG
| mapframe = yes
| mapframe-stroke-width = 2
| map_caption = Interactive map of the Rubicon river
| map_alt = Interactive map of the Rubicon river
| image_caption     = The mouth of the Rubicon in [[Bellaria - Igea Marina|Bellaria]]
| source1_location  = [[Sogliano al Rubicone]]
| mouth_location    = [[Adriatic Sea]]
| mouth_coordinates = {{Coord|44.1681|12.4431|display=it}}
| subdivision_type1 = Country
| subdivision_name1 = [[Italy]]
| length            = {{convert|80|km|mi|0|abbr=on}}
| source1_elevation = {{convert|250|m|ft|0|abbr=on}}
| mouth_elevation   =
| discharge1_avg    = 
| basin_size        = 
}}

The '''Rubicon''' ({{langx|la|Rubico}}; {{langx|it|Rubicone}} {{IPA|it|rubiˈkoːne|}};<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dizionario.rai.it/poplemma.aspx?lid=22672&r=105394|title=Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia|website=www.dizionario.rai.it|access-date=2017-06-17|archive-date=2017-11-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107012847/http://www.dizionario.rai.it/poplemma.aspx?lid=22672&r=105394|url-status=dead}}</ref> {{langx|rgn|Rubicôn}} {{IPA|rgn|rubiˈkoːŋ|}}) is a shallow [[river]] in northeastern [[Italy]], just south of [[Cesena]] and north of [[Rimini]]. It was known as '''Fiumicino''' until 1933, when it was identified with the ancient river Rubicon, [[Crossing the Rubicon|crossed]] by [[Julius Caesar]] in 49 BC.
The river flows for around {{cvt|80|km}} from the [[Apennine Mountains]] to the [[Adriatic Sea]] through the south of the [[Emilia-Romagna]] region, between the towns of [[Rimini]] and [[Cesena]].

==Etymology==
The Latin word {{lang|la|Rubico}} comes from the adjective {{lang|la|rubeus}}, meaning "red". The river was so named because its waters are colored red by iron deposits in the riverbed.

==History==
During the [[Roman Republic]], the Rubicon marked the boundary between the [[Roman province]] of [[Cisalpine Gaul]] and the areas directly controlled by Rome and its {{lang|la|[[socii]]}} (allies), to the south. On the north-western side, the border was marked by the river [[Arno]], a much wider and more important waterway, which flows westward from the [[Apennine Mountains]] (the Arno and the Rubicon rise not far from each other) into the [[Tyrrhenian Sea]].

===Caesar's crossing===
{{Further|Crossing the Rubicon}}
[[File:Crossing the Rubicon (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Julius Caesar]] [[crossing the Rubicon]]]]

In 49 BC, perhaps on 10 January, [[Julius Caesar]] led a single [[Roman legion|legion]], [[Legio XIII Gemina]], south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome. In doing so, he deliberately broke the law limiting his {{lang|la|[[imperium]]}}, making armed conflict inevitable. [[Suetonius]] ("Divus Julius" 32) depicts Caesar as undecided as he approached the river, and attributes the crossing to a supernatural apparition (thus also in [[Lucan]], 1.185-203). It was reported that Caesar dined with [[Sallust]], [[Hirtius]], [[Gaius Oppius]], [[Lucius Cornelius Balbus (consul)|Lucius Cornelius Balbus]], and [[Servius Sulpicius Rufus]] on the night after his crossing.

According to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase {{lang|la|[[alea iacta est]]}} ('the [[dice|die]] is cast') upon crossing the Rubicon, signifying that his action was irreversible.<ref>''[[Lives of the Caesars]]'', "Divus Julius" sect. 32. Suetonius gives the [[Latin]] version, {{lang|la|iacta alea est}}, although, according to [[Plutarch]]'s ''Parallel Lives'', Caesar quoted a line from the playwright [[Menander]]: {{lang|grc|ἀνερρίφθω κύβος}}, {{lang|grc-Latn|anerríphthō kȳbos}}, 'let the die be cast'. Suetonius's subtly different translation is often also quoted as {{lang|la|alea iacta est}}.</ref> The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" is now used to refer to committing irrevocably to a grave course of action, similar to the modern phrase "passing the [[point of no return]]," but with the added connotation of risking danger. The presence of Caesar and his legion in Italy forced [[Pompey]], the [[Roman consul|consuls]], and a large part of the senate to flee Rome. Caesar's victory in the [[Caesar's Civil War|subsequent civil war]] ensured that he would never be punished for his actions.

===Later history===
After Caesar's crossing, the Rubicon was a geographical feature of note until about 42 BC, when [[Augustus|Octavian]] merged the Province of [[Cisalpine Gaul]] into [[Italia (Roman Empire)|Italia]] and the river ceased to be the extreme northern border of Italy. The decision robbed the Rubicon of its importance, and the name gradually disappeared from the local toponymy.

After the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]], and during the first centuries of the [[Middle Ages]], the coastal plain between [[Ravenna]] and [[Rimini]] was flooded many times. The Rubicon, like other small rivers of the region, often changed its course during this period. For this reason, and to supply fields with water after the revival of agriculture in the [[late Middle Ages]], during the 14th and 15th centuries, hydraulic works were built to prevent other floods and to regulate streams. As a result of this work, these rivers started to flow in straight courses, as they do today.

==Identification==
With the revival during the fifteenth century of interest in the topography of ancient Roman Italy, the matter of identifying the Rubicon in the contemporary landscape became a topic of debate among [[Renaissance humanist]]s.<ref>A brief account of the controversies favoring rivers of Romagna, between the Pisciatello, called the Rigone in its lowest reaches, the Fiumicino near Savignano and the Uso is in ''Dissertazione seconda dell'abate Pasquale Amati savignanese sopra alcune lettere del signor dottor Bianchi di Rimini e sopra il Rubicone degli antichi'' (Faenza, 1763:6–8), noted in Roberto Weiss, ''The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity'', 1969:111f and note 9.</ref> To support the claim of the river Pisciatello, a spurious inscription forbidding the passage of an army in the name of the Roman people and Senate, the so-called ''Sanctio'', was placed by a bridge on that river. The [[Quattrocento]] humanist [[Flavio Biondo]] was deceived by it;<ref>Biondo, ''Italia illustrata''.</ref> the actual inscription is conserved in the Museo Archeologico, Cesena.<ref>Weiss 1969:112 and notes</ref> As the centuries went by, several rivers of the Adriatic coast between Ravenna and Rimini have at times been said to correspond to the ancient Rubicon.

The ''[[Via Aemilia]]'' (modern SS&nbsp;9) still follows its original Roman course as it runs between the hills and the plain; it would have been the obvious course to follow as it was the only major Roman road east of the [[Apennine Mountains]] leading to and from the [[Po Valley]]. Attempts to deduce the original course of the Rubicon can be made only by studying written documents and other archaeological evidence such as Roman milestones, which indicate the distance between the ancient river and the nearest Roman towns.
[[File:Tabula_Peutingeriana_Rubicon.png|left|thumb|Detail of the {{Lang|la|[[Tabula Peutingeriana]]}} around the Rubicon]]
The [[mile zero]] of a [[Roman road]], from which distances were counted, was always the crossing between the [[Cardo]] and the [[Decumanus Maximus|Decumanus]], the two principal streets in every Roman town, running north–south and east–west respectively. In a section of the [[Tabula Peutingeriana]], a medieval copy of a Late Antique document showing the network of Roman roads, a river in northeastern Italy labeled "''fl. Rubicum''" is shown at a position 12 [[Mile#Roman mile|Roman miles]] ({{cvt|18|km|disp=comma}}) north of Rimini along the coastline; this is the distance between Rimini and a place called "Ad Confluentes," drawn west of the Rubicon, on the Via Aemilia. However, the river-bed shape observed in Pisciatello and the Rubicon river in the present day, well below Roman-age soil layers, is likely to indicate that any possible course modification of rivers could have occurred only very close to the coastline, and therefore only slight.

Furthermore, the features of the present-day Rubicon river (north–south course, orthogonal to the Via Aemilia) and the Via Aemilia itself (a straight reach before and after the crossing, and a turn just passing by {{ill|San Giovanni in Compito|it|Chiesa di San Giovanni in Compito}}, so marking a possible administrative boundary) are common to typical geographical oriented limits of Roman age, being what made this a clue of actual identification of the present-day Rubicon River with the Fiumicino.<ref>Gianluca Bottazzi (Università di Parma), ''Le centuriazioni di Ariminum: prospettive di ricerca.''</ref>

In 1933, after various efforts that spanned centuries, the Fiumicino, which crossed the town of Savignano di Romagna (now [[Savignano sul Rubicone]]), was officially identified as the former Rubicon. Strong evidence supporting this theory came in 1991,<ref>Pignotti R., Ravagli P., Donati G., "Rubico quondam finis Italiae", ''Città del Rubicone'', p. 3, October, 1991</ref> when three Italian scholars (Pignotti, Ravagli, and Donati), after a comparison between the [[Tabula Peutingeriana]] and other ancient sources (including [[Cicero]]), showed that the distance from Rome to the Rubicon River was 200 Roman miles. Key elements of their work are:
* The locality of San Giovanni in Compito (now a western quarter of Savignano) has to be identified with the old ''Ad Confluentes'' (''compitum'' means "road junction", and is synonymous with ''confluentes'').
* The distance between ''Ad Confluentes'' and Rome, according to the [[Tabula Peutingeriana]], is 201 Roman miles.
* The distance from today's San Giovanni in Compito and the Fiumicino river is one Roman mile ({{cvt|1.48|km|disp=comma}}).

==Present==
[[File:Savignano sul Rubicone - Ponte romano innevato (febbraio 2012).jpg|thumb|The Rubicon in winter.]]

Today there is no visible, material evidence of Caesar's historical passage. [[Savignano sul Rubicone]] is an industrial town and the river has become one of the most polluted in the [[Emilia-Romagna]] region. Exploitation of underground waters along the upper course of the Rubicon has reduced its flow—it was a minor river even during Roman times ("''parvi Rubiconis ad undas''" as [[Marcus Annaeus Lucanus|Lucan]] said, "to the waves of [the] tiny Rubicon")—and has since lost its natural route, except in its upper course, between low and woody hills.{{Clarify|reason=This should be rephrased. There is no one "natural route," as rivers naturally change their course constantly. Most likely all rivers in the world no longer have the same course they had in 49 BC.|date=September 2025}}

==In popular culture==
*The song ''Crossing the Rubicon'' by a [[Sabaton (band)|Sabaton]] and [[Nothing More]] collaboration has the Rubicon take center stage, with the song being about [[Julius Caesar]]'s [[Crossing the Rubicon|crossing of the Rubicon River]] in 49 BC.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{commons category-inline}}
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Rubicon}}
* [https://www.livius.org/ro-rz/rubico/rubico.html Livius.org: Rubico] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121222041733/http://www.livius.org/ro-rz/rubico/rubico.html |date=2012-12-22 }}
* [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rubicon Rubicon in dictionary]
* {{cite web |url=http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/393484 |title=Places: 393484 (Rubico fl.) |author=Pearce, M., R. Peretto, P. Tozzi, R. Talbert, T. Elliott, S. Gillies |date=15 November 2020 |access-date=March 8, 2012<!-- 12:30 pm -->|publisher=Pleiades}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Rivers of Italy]]
[[Category:Roman Italy]]
[[Category:Julius Caesar]]
[[Category:Rivers of Emilia-Romagna]]
[[Category:Adriatic Italian coast basins]]