When Julius Caesar’s father died suddenly when Caesar was 16, it put him in charge of
the family.
Around 17 he had also been appointed the High Priest of Jupiter, though was later stripped
of this position when Sulla (Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix) became dictator of Rome.
Caesar then fled Rome, but ultimately got in the good graces of Sulla though thanks
to his mother’s family and then returned and joined the military so as to skip town
just in case Sulla changed his mind.
When Sulla resigned as dictator in 79BC and died the following year, Caesar resigned from
the military and returned to Rome where he made a name for himself as a legal advocate
and great public speaker despite his high pitched voice.
This bring us to 75 BC, when a 25 year old Julius Caesar was sailing the Aegean Sea when
he was kidnapped by pirates.
The pirates who captured him then asked for a ransom of 20 talents of silver (which is
about 620 kg of silver or $400,000 by today's silver prices).
According to Plutarch, rather than send his associates off to gather the silver, Caesar
instead berated the pirates and demanded they ask for 50 talents of silver (1550 kg of silver),
as 20 talents was too small of a ransom for someone as notable as himself.
In truth, Caesar at this point was just a private citizen, but he was from a very prominent
and well connected family.
The pirates, of course, agreed and Caesar sent some of his associates off to gather
the silver, which took 38 days to accomplish.
Now nearly alone with the pirates (only keeping two servants and one of his friends), rather
than cower, he instead took the route of treating them as if they were his subordinates.
He even reportedly went so far as to demand they not talk whenever he decided to take
a nap or go to sleep for the night.
He spent most of his time with them composing and reciting poetry, as well as writing speeches.
He would then recite the works to the pirates.
At other times, he joined in with playing various games with them and participating
in their exercises, generally acting as if he wasn't a prisoner, but rather, their leader.
The pirates supposedly grew to respect and like him and allowed him the freedom to more
or less do as he pleased on their island and ships.
That said, while he was friendly with the pirates, he also didn't appreciate being held
captive.
As such, he swore to them that he would hunt them down and have them crucified, once the
ransom was paid and he was released.
True to his word, once he was free, he manage to quickly raise a small fleet which he took
back to the island the pirates had held him at.
Apparently they hadn't taken his threats seriously, because they were still there when he arrived.
He thus captured them and took back his 50 talents of silver, along with all their possessions.
He next delivered the pirates to the authorities at the prison at Pergamon and then traveled
to meet the proconsul of Asia, Marcus Junius, to petition to have the pirates executed.
The proconsul refused, wanting to sell the pirates as slaves and take the spoils for
himself.
Unhappy with this outcome, Caesar traveled back to Pergamon where the pirates were being
held and ordered that they be crucified under his own authority, which was subsequently
done, though as a slight act of mercy, he did have their throats cut before they were
crucified, which while still ending up with them being dead, was at least a much less
painful, and drastically quicker, way to die.
Not long after this he was called back to the military where he started to make a name
for himself, eventually culminating in his famous Crossing of the Rubicon, changing the
world forever.
That said, funny enough given how much of world history after hinged on this one act,
up until very recently, nobody actually knew where the Rubicon was that he crossed, which
now leads us into our Bonus Fact of the day.
Bonus Fact:
On January 10, 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with a legion of his soldiers,
which was against Roman law.
Specifically, Governors of Roman provinces (promagistrates) were not allowed to bring
any part of their army within Italy itself and, if they tried, they automatically forfeited
their right to rule, even in their own province.
The only ones who were allowed to command soldiers in Italy were consuls or preators.
This act of leading his troops into Italy would have meant Caesar's execution and the
execution of any soldier who followed him, had he failed in his conquest.
So why did he do it?
Caesar was ordered to return to Return to Rome as his term as governor was up as well
as ordered to disband his army as well.
The problem was that with some of his political enemies in prominent positions, Caesar was
not too keen on returning to Rome without an army at his back or the immunity granted
to magistrates.
According to the historian Suetonius, Caesar wasn't at first sure whether he'd bring his
soldiers with him or come quietly, in terms of which thing was more risky.
But he ultimately made the decision his survival would be most likely if he marched to Rome
with some of his soldiers at his back.
This brings us back to the fact that despite the Rubicon once signifying the boundary between
Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper, the exact location of the river was lost to history
until quite recently.
The river's location was initially lost primarily because it was a very small river, of no major
size or importance, other than as a convenient border landmark.
Thus, when Augustus merged the northern province of Cisalpine Gaul into Italy proper, it ceased
to be a border and which river it was exactly gradually faded from history.
Thanks to occasional flooding of the region until around the 14th or 15th centuries, the
course of the river also frequently changed with very little of it thought to still follow
the original course, excepting the upper regions.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, various mechanisms were put in place to prevent flooding and
to regulate somewhat the paths of many rivers in that region to accommodate agricultural
endeavors.
This flooding and eventual regulation of the rivers' paths further made it difficult to
decipher which river was actually the Rubicon and where exactly the historic crossing took
place.
Various rivers were proposed as candidates, but the correct theory wasn't proposed until
1933, namely what now is called the Fiumicino with the crossing likely being somewhere around
the present day industrial town of Savignano sul Rubicone which you might think would be
a dead giveaway as to the location, but it should be noted here that before 1991 it was
called Savignano di Romagna.
What happened in 1991?
Scholars, using various historical texts, managed to triangulate the exact distance
from Rome to the Rubicon at 199 miles (320 km).
Following Roman roads of the day and other evidence, they then were able to deduce where
exactly the original Rubicon had been and which river today was once the Rubicon.
(Note: the Fiumicino river today is about 1 mile away from where the Rubicon used to
flow around that crossing site).