About Rubicon Communications, LLC

Rubicon is an editorial services and communications firm, specializing in writing, editing, training, and radio.  The company was founded by Ingrid E. Cummings, APR, in 2000.

Fundamentally, I’m in the English language business.  I particularly like science writing.  Sometimes I say I “put the life in the life sciences,” unless of course the client doesn’t want any life in their life sciences.

I’m the author of The Vigorous Mind; a radio host (Rubicon Salon, WICR 88.7 FM), and regular contributor to Indianapolis Monthly magazine.  I do quite a bit of public speaking and training, too.

Regardless, everybody asks who or what the word Rubicon refers to.  It’s a modest river in Italy, but it stands for much more.  Indeed, the crossing of this small stream in northern Italy became one of ancient history’s most pivotal events. From it sprang the Roman Empire and the genesis of modern European culture.

In the way of many ancient icons, the river Rubicon has enriched our language with its symbolic value.  Possibly no other metaphor from the ancient world has achieved such standing in modern discourse.  This famous figure of speech – “to cross the Rubicon” – has survived, even as its inspiration has receded into obscurity.

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar led his army to the banks of the Rubicon, the small river that marked the boundary between Italy and Gaul and which the Roman Senate had forbidden him to cross.  “The die is cast,” (iacta alea est), Caesar proclaimed, wading in, knowing full well this step would mean civil war.  “To cross the Rubicon,” is therefore to be committed irrevocably; to reach a point of no return; to begin an action from which one cannot turn back.

This momentous river — really just a straggly stream — eventually disappeared from maps.  The truth is, by the 18th century, no one was quite sure which of the three or more modest rivers in the area had been the storied Rubicon.  Today, one of those streams has been somewhat arbitrarily identified as the Rubicon.  In the nondescript Italian town of Gatteo a Mare, the insouciant little river flows placidly through a campground and a trailer park as it makes its way to the waiting Adriatic.