WITH fond appreciation, I still noted one thing you left out of Rubicon that surprised me, and wondered why!

Since I first read of it, I was overwhelmed by the fact that, in the fraught last weeks before the Senate declared Caesar hostis, there was actually a day when compromise might have been possible and the Senate voted in large majority NOT to follow the steps leading to Civil War, but rather 'a plague on both their houses' regarding Pompey and Caesar:

In the senate, each man was asked for his opinion. Claudius [Marcellus, senior Consul for that month) unscrupulously broke up the question and required them to state separately whether successors should be sent to Caesar and whether Pompeius should be stripped of his command. There was a majority against the latter proposal and in favor of appointing successors to Caesar. Curio [Caesar's tame Tribune] then put the question, whether they thought both of them should lay aside their powers, and twenty-two men voted against, but 370 preferred expediency to conflict and defected to Curio. Whereupon, Claudius dismissed the senate, shouting "Have your way, be slaves to Caesar" (Appian, II, 30. Worth reading this section in full)

It was thereafter that the Consul went straight to Pompey without the Senate's authorization and appointed him commander of the Senate's forces against Caesar. And all this after such a massive majority proved they would rather remove the both of them, rather than go to war!

Am I simply being more impressed with this vote than I should be? But I did wonder what wonderfuly author-ish considerations caused you to omit it!