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January 10, the 705th year since the foundation of Rome, the 49th before the birth of Christ.

The sun had long set behind the Aponine Mountains. Lined up in full marching order,

soldiers from the 13th legions stood massed in the dark.

Bitter the night may have been, but they were well used to extremes. For eight years they had

been following the governor of Gaul on campaign after bloody campaign through snow, through summer

heat to the margins of the world. And now, returned from the barbarous wilds of the north,

they found themselves poised on a very different frontier. Ahead of them,

flowed a narrow stream. And Tom Holland, that very purple prose hasn't sent you to sleep.

What was the name of that stream? Pre-Tel. Dominic, the name of that narrow stream was

the Rubicon. And who wrote those extraordinary lines, Tom? Dominic, towards the eye.

So that's the beginning of Tom's book, Rubicon. So that's the book that launched you as a historian,

isn't it? Yes, it's the first work of history that I wrote. So in a way, my career as a historian

owes everything to those lines. With those lines. Extraordinarily. You're still working in

history. And here we are. And so we did the 12 days of Christmas over the festive season.

And we were talking about anniversaries. And this is another anniversary, isn't it? Because

January the 10th, did it really happen on January the 10th? Tom? Well, as with everything in

ancient history, it's complex. I mean, this is the traditional date. It may have been a couple

of days later. And it's further complicated by the incredible difficulty of mapping the Republican

era dates onto our contemporary calendar. So by some reckonings, it may have been in late November.

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