Article by Benjamin Clun previously posted on the NORSKK web site on December 15, 2017.

January 10. 49 BC. In what is the upper end of modern Italy, an army gathers on the northern banks of a river. Thousands of men, some Roman citizens, many not, wait patiently. Having fought battle after battle in Gaul over the preceding years, they await a lecture from a man they have followed to victory time and time again.

This man walks out before them. Having earned their loyalty in the campaigns they have been fighting, his men have absolute faith in him, and he knows it. Which is why he is about to ask them to commit treason. The river they stand before, the Rubicon, is the line between mainland Italy, and cisalpine Gaul. This line is the boundary of the Republic, and to go to the south of it places these men into proper Roman territory.