Alea iacta est

Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") is a variation of a Latin phrase (iacta alea est [ˈjakta ˈaːlɛ.a ˈɛs̺t]) attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on 10 January 49 BC, as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy, in defiance of the Roman Senate and beginning a long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates.

The Latin version is now most commonly cited with the word order changed (Alea iacta est), and it is used both in this form, and in translation in many languages.

[note 2] Plutarch reports that Caesar quoted these words in Greek: Ἑλληνιστὶ πρὸς τοὺς παρόντας ἐκβοήσας, «Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος», [anerrhī́phthō kýbos] διεβίβαζε τὸν στρατόν.

[3] He [Caesar] declared in Greek with loud voice to those who were present "Let a die be cast" and led the army across.Appian, also writing in Greek, reports a very similar phrase: καὶ εἰπὼν οἷά τις ἔνθους ἐπέρα σὺν ὁρμῇ, τὸ κοινὸν τόδε ἐπειπών· «Ὁ κύβος ἀνερρίφθω».Then speaking like a man inspired, he surged across, uttering the familiar phrase, "Let the die be cast".Suetonius, a contemporary of Plutarch and Appian, writing in Latin, has the quote in Latin instead of Greek: Caesar: "... iacta alea est", inquit.

[8] Though this play is now lost, the following dialogue from it was preserved in Athenaeus of Naucratis's Deipnosophistae (book 13, paragraph 8): A: If you've got any sense, you won't get married and give up living like this.