Allusion to 'The Rubicon'?

Question

"...to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that trial, no longer shirked, must be firmly sustained"(Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" chapter 7).

I don't know what this sentence is alluding to, so if someone could help me it would be much appreciated.

I'll probably have a lot more questions like this so if you know a lot about history or literature, the favor would do a lot for me.

Answer 1

The Rubico was an old name for a small river in northern Italy (nobody knows which one) that marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy itself to the south. There was a Roman law forbidding any general from crossing it with a standing army; this was intended to protect the republic from internal military threat.

When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, supposedly on January 10 of the Roman calendar to make his way to Rome, he broke that law and made armed conflict inevitable. According to the historian Suetonius, he uttered the famous phrase "alea iacta est" ("the die is cast").

The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" has survived to refer to any person committing himself irrevocably to a risky course of action, another way of saying "passing the point of no return."

You'll probably find Wikipedia.com very useful when searching for the origin of such expressions.

Answer 2

Crossing the Rubicon is a phrase meaning that you have passed the point of no return.

The phrase alludes to Julius Caesar's invasion of Ancient Rome, when, on January 10, 49 BC, he led his army across the Rubicon river in violation of law, making conflict inevitable.

Answer 3

Yes, good two answers. Some people think that this event serve as a ground of more recent phenomenons, such as Rubicon Group...