ALEA IACTA EST - Strategic performance writing

This day belongs to Caesar and Thomas Paine

During the Roman republic, the river Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul  to the north-east and Italy proper (controlled directly by Rome and its socii (allies)) to the south. On the north-western side, the border was marked by the river Arno, a much wider and more important waterway, which flows westward from the Apennine Mountains (its source is not far from Rubicon's source) into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Governors of Roman provinces were appointed promagistrates with imperium (roughly, "right to command") in their province(s). The governor would then serve as the general of the Roman army within the territory of his province(s). Roman law specified that only the elected magistrates (consuls and praetors) could hold imperium within Italy. Any promagistrate who entered Italy at the head of his troops forfeited his imperium and was therefore no longer legally allowed to command troops. Exercising imperium when forbidden by the law was a capital offence, punishable by death.

Julius Caesar

In 49 BC, supposedly on 10^th January of the Roman Calendar, Gaius Julius Caesar led one legion, the Legio XIII Gemina, south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy to make his way to Rome. In doing so, he (deliberately) broke the law on imperium and made armed conflict inevitable. According to the historian Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase Alea iacta est  ("the die has been cast").

Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine.

Paine

It was first published anonymously on 10^th January 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution. Common Sense was signed "Written by an Englishman", and it became an immediate success. In relative proportion to the population of the colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of seeking independence was still undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. Forgoing the philosophical and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, he structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon, and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity. A good example of strategic performance writing. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era". Thomas Paine might have remarked on the publication of Common Sense  Alea iacta est.