Book Review of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

UPDATED: 2/5/2023

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536 pages, published in 2015

YOU MAY ENJOY THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE:

European/United Kingdom history * Political history * Cultural history * Military history

TRAVEL INSPIRATION:

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome is one of three books we picked up to provide an overview of Roman history in advance of our week-long trip to the city. As I write this, we should have just returned home from that trip; alas, we had to postpone it to an unknown future date as a result of the current pandemic.

As a city, Rome’s ancient history is enmeshed throughout and so we wanted to refresh our knowledge of its history to better appreciate what we would see. Reading this in lieu of traveling still gave us an opportunity to brush up on our ancient Roman history for a future trip and to more fully appreciate this complex and nuanced empire.

While Rome was the seat of the Roman Empire, its reach and territories spanned a much larger area - north to the United Kingdom, south to Africa, and throughout the shores of the Mediterranean in what we think of today as both western and eastern Europe. So this book is a good read for anyone traveling to any part of the former Roman Empire’s territories.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Beard

As Mary Beard describes it herself in the book’s epilogue, this book was 50 years in the making. Starting in her late teens, she spent time on some archaeological digs, which cemented her love for the ancient. Her career as a Classicist has had a specific focus on ancient Rome, and today she is, among other things, a professor of classics at Cambridge University in England.

In a field not known for wide public renown, Mary Beard has made a name for herself through appearances on television or in documentaries where she serves as an expert on this ancient society. She has also had her fair share of controversies for her outspokenness on various topics of modern society.

But what she is known for in relation to her portrayal of Roman history is her ability to cut through the glint and glitter often assigned to ancient societies and has sought to present the Romans as a complex and nuanced group, who were trying to figure things out as they went, did not have a perfect solution for most things, and cannot be presented in a linear fashion they way history likes to present things as having foregone conclusions when in fact Romans were simply humans, as flawed then as we are now.

REVIEW OF Spqr: A History of Ancient rome BY mary beard

First, for those wondering what on earth SPQR means: this is an abbreviation what was commonly used in ancient Rome (and is still used today in the city of Rome) and stands for “Senatus Populusque Romanus” in Latin. The English translation is “The Senate and People of Rome,” and represents the two main pillars of society. (As an aside, some white nationalist groups have recently tried to co-opt this by using it in some of their materials, not unlike the way Hitler tried to hearken back to some Roman traditions as a way to gain historic legitimacy.)

Generally speaking, Beard covers ancient Rome chronologically from what is known, surmised, or unknowable from the earliest years of the city’s founding to the rule of Caracalla in 212 CE. Toward the latter portion of the book, there are also sections covering topics that are not necessarily time-bound such as the typical pursuits of the average Roman after working hours with funny quotes in their drinking establishments that literally sound like the same thing you’d hear today.

What makes Beard’s review of Rome unique and gained her book accolades is her ability to pull back the covers on the myth and hero-worship that can accompany Rome and make it more real. She is very class-conscious throughout and shares what is known of the average and poorer populations whose stories are more often lost through the sands of time. There is an interesting discussion throughout the book about the role slaves played in ancient Rome, the ways in which they could be freed and enter mainstream society and even gain citizenship. In writing about past events, it is easy to view outcomes as inevitable, pre-ordained, or pre-planned, and it is clear that Beard is frustrated by how much of this she finds in others’ discussions of ancient Rome; instead, she makes a point of delving into the unsolved challenges of the Romans - for example, how they struggled to determine how the emperor and senate fit together.

There is a lot to unpack in this lengthy and dense book. Probably the most challenging part of reading it for me is that in the hundreds of years this book spans, there were countless leaders, many of whom had similar names and nicknames. While Beard did the best she could to make that clear-cut, even with those attempts, it can get a bit hard to follow who did what. I chose to focus less on that and more on the themes emerging. For those with an interest in reading more about the specific rulers during this time period, you’ll probably enjoy that level of detail for some of the less-renowned emperors.

For those interested in an overview of ancient Rome as interpreted through clear eyes and a healthy dose of reality from someone who has spent 50 years studying the Romans and knows her subjects, this is a must-read.

Want more on Rome? Mary Beard writes a blog/column for TLS (Times Literary Supplement) that you can find here.

DISCUSS SPQR

If you have read SPQR, what did you find to be some of the most interesting parts of this book? If anyone has read other books by Mary Beard that you would recommend, we would love to hear that, too!

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