Cross the Rubicon

Cross the Rubicon means to do something which cannot be undone. It refers to Caesar's army entering Italy by fording the Rubicon River.
There’s no going back now.

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Idiom: Cross the Rubicon

Cross the Rubicon is an expression that means once you do something, you cannot undo it.

It refers to Julius Caesar returning to Italy and fording the Rubicon River with his army.

It was illegal for a Roman general to bring his army into Rome at the time.

Once Caesar had brought his army across the Rubicon, he could not second-guess himself.

He had broken the law, and his only choices were to fight or run away.

You’ll have to do some research to understand why Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army.

Anyway, in modern times, the idiom is used quite often.

Most recently, North Korea crossed the Rubicon with its intercontinental missile tests.

Now, there is no going back to a non-nuclear capable North Korea.

We all have to deal with it in the best way we can.


This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 68.

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.



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