SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

A history of Rome, exploring its founding myths and realities, to the extent they’re knowable from the evidence. History is always about the present; Beard’s Rome is notable because it made conquered subjects into Roman citizens, with Roman citizens’ rights (although such rights could be hard to exercise from far away), and because many important figures from Roman history were immigrants, or near descendants of immigrants: Rome as melting pot. There are some repeating tics, like “it was more complicated than that,” but overall I enjoyed it as a history of people (almost all men, since that’s who left the records) scheming and fighting and doing the best they could to govern.

SPQR is one of those big books you see at the library or bookstore (who are we kidding?) and kind of just marvel at. Maybe I'm the only one. Who actually reads those, other than the retired? These felt insurmountable as a young teen, even as I kept impulsively thrift-store buying and storing them. When was I going to read them? Who knows. I guess when I was retired.

It makes some sense though. In our current nonfiction historical tastes, it seems that the Doctoral thesis-cum-book deal or even the bloated Medium-article microhistory is winning out more and more. These tombs seem stodgy as best, potentially dangerous at worst. My University library, of which it carries books for 60,000+ people, had only one complete copy of Edward show more Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire—and it was in storage. I'm not saying I'm reading it either—I'm just saying it says a lot, no?

This is not that: Beard charts the early, mythic history of Rome to the end of the Roman millennium, around 248 AD. Each chapter (until the last third of the book) is roughly chronological, with welcome revisionist asides that place this book in a refreshingly modern context without being trendy. I've noticed in my constant book-perusing that the field of Classical study has been in a bit of uncomfortable reckoning: no matter how you spin it, there's really nothing less institutional and "ism-y" than the study itself, and a slew of (frankly weird) publications attempting to pretend that isn't the case have come out in recent years. SPQR is far from that—It explores the role of free-women, slaves, and non-citizens without making excuses for the lack of evidence about them, while also constantly reminding the reader of the yarns ancient authors spun for a good story and acknowledging that much of the juiciest bits of these histories are most likely false. Overall, it's a wonderful tone that looks at the Roman ruling elite not as gods or villains, but as political realities tangible to criticisms and praise. To everyone else, it is a wonderfully human look at their lives without being maudlin.

My only real gripe with the book is the lack of structure and depth in anything post-Augustus. Beard structures a 50-page chapter to summarize the next 200 years of Roman political rule and organizes it by Emperors and their rule and then the Senate—which was an understandable distinction given the change of the role of both but nevertheless a bit off after the relative chronology of the previous 400 pages. The weakest point is generally this last third: it's a changing, declining, expanding (whatever you want to call it) state that is obviously difficult to summarize but I still felt rushed through those years to get to the end. Beard fluffs out the ending with chapters regarding a general overview of class, gender, and evidence of expansion/colonial efforts, which I truly appreciated but wish was interspersed with a stronger chronological backbone. I love social history, don't get me wrong, but the great value of big books like these tend to (for me at least) be it's grounding and (perhaps too optimistically) ubiquity of the timeframe it reports of.

Despite all that bitching, this is an almost-addictingly readable history of Rome and I absolutely recommend it. I had a few horribly taught Roman history classes in undergrad while I was studying Classics that turned me off to learning more and this book has somehow given me a better starting point than anything those teachers could muster. Perhaps I should blame myself: I exclusively studied Greek and so tended to stay with their history classes, but for the first time ever I'm actually a bit jealous of the Latin kids of my past. Oh well. I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow in a cold sweat and remember my poor friends' Livy lamentations of yore, haha. Anyways, I have a lifetime ahead of me so I thank this book for getting me back into this stodgy, dusty, wonderful world of Ancient Rome. show less

I really liked Ms. Beard's engaging writing style that conveys her enthusiasm for her subject. I also liked her awareness that there is more than one side to every story. I also really liked the modern perspective she brought to the subject, which includes a multidisciplinary approach and a focus on "regular folks" as well as the powerful leaders.

I was struck by the fact that many of the problems facing the Roman Empire are still with us today, including debt, inequality of influence and wealth, corruption. Makes me wonder if these are unsolvable problems that will be with us forever.

Readers who've studied antiquity formally or read secondary sources in the original might not have much reason to read this one, but for everyone else, "SPQR" is highly recommendable. Beard provides a panoramic view of Roman history here, but what makes it so good is the focus she keeps on a few issues that feel vital to her. She digs through ancient Roman history trying to disentangle fact from myth. She describes a historical record that is at once plentiful and full of gaps. And she consistently tries to figure out how the Romans viewed themselves and their empire's project. What she describes is a world that will seem both bizarre and strangely familiar to modern readers -- the same empire that exposed babies at rubbish dumps and show more rescued them for slave labor also seems to have been the foundation of what we think of as "citizenship." She also seems to take aim, as other historians have, I'm sure, at Hollywood's safely European view of Rome: the Rome that Beard describes was constantly expanding its borders and assimilating people, a Greek/Latin agglomeration that involved everyone from Britain to the Black Sea. Beard presents a Rome that was, in many ways, deeply influenced by its military culture, but I rather enjoyed what she revealed about the day-to-day lives of ordinary Romans, and, frankly, I was amazed at how much historians and archeologists have been able to learn about their lives from the bits of smashed statues and variegated junk that they left behind. Beard mentions inscriptions on game boards, and graves, commercial records and private correspondence. One of the best, and most thrilling, aspects of "SPQR" is that the author takes her readers through a historian's reasoning process, showing them how much knowledge can be gleaned from the little that's been left behind and the much that's disappeared along the way. Beard's command of the material she goes over here is impressive, and has the casual yet precise poise that can only really come from a lifetime studying the Romans and their times. I finished this one and told myself that it's time to start reading more history. show less

This took me a lot longer to get through than Tom Holland's Rubicon, and the differences are salutary. The latter was a driving narrative dealing with tumultuous events and larger-than-life characters who actually bestrode the historical stage. SQPR is a far more thoughtful, analytical survey of Roman history from its dim and distant origins to the final flourish of the Augustan emperors. Mary Beard digs into the material, highlighting not only the gaps in the record, but the necessity of reading what is there with a skeptical eye. The relationship between the emperor, the senate and the people is central to her approach, how the idea of citizenship developed, how the idea of Rome was created and backdated. In the latter chapters in show more particular she makes an effort to appraise some sense of everyday life in various levels of Roman society and as usual in these things one is left with sense of how little is known. Still, for all that a great deal is known - through writings and tombs and graffiti and records and archaeological remains, and though not exhaustive, Beard introduces us to a great deal of it.

Well written, discursive, erudite and witty. show less

Very interesting - where books about the Romans normally seem to focus on military matters, technology, and juicy stories about debauched emperors, Beard takes her title literally and concentrates on the relationship between politics and ordinary life, in the process revealing how much less we really know about either than we thought we did. When we look at it closely, despite all we have from texts and achaeology, so much of our knowledge - especially for the early history of Rome - depends on the accounts of classical authors writing long after the event and with their own agendas. If you want the juicy anecdotes, stick to Suetonius and Robert Graves, but if you know them all already, then this book will be a useful sanity check.

Mary Beard has a way of explaining things that a) conveys her excitement b) updates people’s actions in 21st century terms c) doesn’t follow just the famous people or just the traditionally accepted history. She also knows how to draw lots of information from not a lot of apparent evidence, manages to keep the big picture present while dealing with, say, the death of Caesar, and provides lovely anecdotes*. There’s also a keen awareness that there are multiple sides to any story, which I really liked too. SPQR isn’t a rivetting read, but it’s darned enjoyable and interesting.

9/10

* Still laughing over the conspirator, when arrested and found to possess a lot more weapons than he really should have, tried to insist he was merely show more an “enthusiast” and was absolutely not stockpiling for the revolution. show less