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SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard
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A sweeping, revisionist history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists.
Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In S.P.Q.R., world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even two thousand years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.
From the foundational myth of Romulus and Remus to 212 ce―nearly a thousand years later―when the emperor Caracalla gave Roman citizenship to every free inhabitant of the empire, S.P.Q.R. (the abbreviation of "The Senate and People of Rome") examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries by exploring how the Romans thought of themselves: how they challenged the idea of imperial rule, how they responded to terrorism and revolution, and how they invented a new idea of citizenship and nation.
Opening the book in 63 bce with the famous clash between the populist aristocrat Catiline and Cicero, the renowned politician and orator, Beard animates this “terrorist conspiracy,” which was aimed at the very heart of the Republic, demonstrating how this singular event would presage the struggle between democracy and autocracy that would come to define much of Rome’s subsequent history. Illustrating how a classical democracy yielded to a self-confident and self-critical empire, S.P.Q.R. reintroduces us, though in a wholly different way, to famous and familiar characters―Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus, and Nero, among others―while expanding the historical aperture to include those overlooked in traditional histories: the women, the slaves and ex-slaves, conspirators, and those on the losing side of Rome’s glorious conquests.
Like the best detectives, Beard sifts fact from fiction, myth and propaganda from historical record, refusing either simple admiration or blanket condemnation. Far from being frozen in marble, Roman history, she shows, is constantly being revised and rewritten as our knowledge expands. Indeed, our perceptions of ancient Rome have changed dramatically over the last fifty years, and S.P.Q.R., with its nuanced attention to class inequality, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, promises to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.
100 illustrations; 16 pages of color; 5 maps
- Sales Rank: #17689 in Books
- Brand: Liveright Publishing Corporation
- Published on: 2015-11-09
- Released on: 2015-11-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.80" w x 6.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 608 pages
Features
- Liveright Publishing Corporation
Review
“This book tracks the rise of Rome from backwater village to imperial city, spreading its power from Syria to Spain by 63 BCE, staring down resisters, and originating the idea of nation and citizenship. Included here are the stories not just of Julius Caesar but the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker―and certainly women and slaves.” (Barbara Hoffert - Library Journal)
“In SPQR, her wonderful concise history, Mary Beard unpacks the secrets of the city’s success with a crisp and merciless clarity that I have not seen equaled anywhere else…. We tend to think of the Romans as coarser successors to the Greeks. Yet Beard, who doubles as a Cambridge professor and a television lecturer of irresistible salty charm, shows us how the Roman Republic got underway at almost the same time as the Athenian democracy. And it evolved into just the kind of mixed system that sophisticated commentators like Aristotle and Polybius approved of.” (Ferdinand Mount - New York Times Book Review)
“Beard does precisely what few popularizers dare to try and plenty of dons can’t pull off: She conveys the thrill of puzzling over texts and events that are bound to be ambiguous, and she complicates received wisdom in the process. Her magisterial new history of Rome, SPQR…is no exception…. The ancient Romans, Beard shows, are relevant to people many centuries later who struggle with questions of power, citizenship, empire, and identity.” (Emily Wilson - The Atlantic)
“A masterful new chronicle…. Beard is a sure-footed guide through arcane material that, in other hands, would grow tedious. Sifting myth from fact in dealing with the early history of the city, she enlivens―and deepens―scholarly debates by demonstrating how the Romans themselves shaped their legendary beginnings to short-term political ends…. Exemplary popular history, engaging but never dumbed down, providing both the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life.” (The Economist)
“Where SPQR differs most from the standard history is in its clear-sighted honesty…. Beard tells this story precisely and clearly, with passion and without technical jargon…. SPQR is a grim success story, but one told with wonderful flair.” (Greg Woolf - The Wall Street Journal)
“[Beard] is no myth builder; she is a scholar who reaches down-to-earth conclusions based on her years of dedication to her subject…. She is able to step back to see the entire Roman world…. She shows us how to engage with the history, culture, and controversies that made Rome―and why it still matters. Beard's enthusiasm for her subject is infectious…. Lovers of Roman history will revel in this work, and new students will quickly become devotees.” (Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review)
“[Fun] helps define what sets Beard apart as commentator and what sets SPQR apart from other histories of Rome. Though she here claims that 50 years of training and study have led up to SPQR, Beard wears her learning lightly. As she takes us through the brothels, bars, and back alleys where the populus Romanus left their imprint, one senses, above all, that she is having fun.” (James Romm - New Republic)
“Monumental…. A triumphant Roman read that is sure to appear on school curricula and holiday wishlists alike.” (Carly Silver - Shelf Awareness)
About the Author
A professor of classics at Cambridge University, Mary Beard is the author of the best-selling The Fires of Vesuvius and the National Book Critics Circle Award–nominated Confronting the Classics. A popular blogger and television personality, Beard gave the Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. She lives in England.
Most helpful customer reviews
490 of 525 people found the following review helpful.
SPQR and Roman identity
By JPS
Posted a couple of minutes before on Amazon.co.uk
This book from Professor Mary Beard is in many respects a masterpiece, but it is also a somewhat original one because it covers the history of Rome, but only its first millennium. The period starts with its foundation, traditionally set at 753 BC, and it stops around to 212 AD, when the Emperor most well-known as Caracalla made all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire into Roman citizens, therefore changing what it meant to be “Roman” and making “more than 30 million provincials into Romans overnight”, to quote the author. The event was indeed momentous, as rightly emphasised by the author, but this was largely because of its far-reaching consequences, and these may only have appeared overtime.
It can seem odd to publish a book on the history of Rome or on the Roman Empire and stop in AD 212, knowing, as we do, that the Roman Empire continued for over two and a half centuries for its Western part, and at least a further century and a half in the East. This is where the book’s title, its meaning, and the author’s intentions are important to understand.
SPQR is the acronym of the Senate and the People of Rome. The meaning refers to a period where the Senate and the People exercised supreme power in the city of Rome, which was a city-state to begin with, then the capital city of Italy, and the capital of an Empire. It also refers to a period where they appeared to exercise such power, as was the case after the so-called “Roman Revolution” from Augustus onwards, during what used to be called the period of the Principate. This is the period where the Emperor styled himself as the “First among equal” or the Princeps - the First in the Senate, and was careful, at least initially, to preserve the appearances of the Republic and of its institutions.
However, this book is really about Roman identity and, more precisely, what it meant to be a Roman citizen, from the foundation of the little city on the Tiber to the million large city that ruled over an Empire centred on the Mediterranean that the Romans arrogantly – but aptly - called “Mare Nostrum” (“Our Sea). It is not about what it meant to be a subject of the Roman Empire, or of the Christian Roman Empire, with multiple imperial capitals and Rome being, at best, only one of them.
Here we get to the (relatively recent) divide between “Classics” and the Greco-Roman city-state model, as opposed to “Late Antiquity” which covers the Late Roman Empire up to the Arab conquests and no longer up to AD 476 only, and which is underpinned by the Greco-Asian concept of imperial power and Emperors. The reader is also “treated”, somewhat amusingly, to the “politically correct” and faintly ridiculous and hypocritical BCE and CE (Before Common Era and Common Era) that have become fashionable and which refer to exactly the same dates as BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini – Year of the Lord), except that they attempt to hide the Christian origin of the supposedly “global” and “universal” dating system.
Since this book is about the formation and the expansion of Roman identity and Roman citizenship, Mary Bard stars by examining, explaining and debunking Rome’s founding myths, most of which seem to have been elaborated between the first century BC and the first century AD. She also analyses more recent Roman founding myths, such as the so-called decisive battle of Actium, and the propaganda of Augustus. Also included is an analysis of what the Roman regimes and societies really were like – the so-called Republic started as an oligarchy and if Roman Senators cum politicians chose, at times, to become “populares”, as Caesar did for instance, it was more about power and self-interest than about genuine interest for the poor. To help with this, the author makes use of recent archaeological findings and excavations in Rome itself, and all of what used to be called (somewhat disparagingly) the other “auxiliary disciplines” such as numismatics (studying old coins) and epigraphy (studying inscriptions).
To conclude, this is a remarkable book written in a very accessible style but nevertheless with few anachronisms and not attempt to “dumb down”, as books targeted towards the so-called “general reader” and written by academic specialists sometimes tend to do. It is also a book that contains numerous and carefully chosen illustrations which are intended to elicit the reader’s curiosity and interest, such as the fake representation of Cicero’s famous appearance in front of the Senate during which he confounded Catiline. Also included are five excellent maps of Rome and its surroundings, including its Empire. Finally, there are no notes but a rather copious section for “further reading” with just about all of the key references included and commented upon for each of the book’s chapters.
There would in fact be much more to mention about this very rich book. By this point, however, I believe that anyone reading this review will have understood how valuable I found it to be and how much I recommend it. Easily worth five stars, and I would have given it more had this been possible.
233 of 252 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent history
By Thomas Reiter
I probably can't add much to the other reviews, but did want to contribute a five-star rating for this excellent book.
I liked several things about this book:
a) the author does a good job of challenging assumptions about what we "know" about Rome, usually pointing to a lack of evidence (or at least unbiased evidence) for this position or that (eg, how bad were Caligula, Nero, et al in fact?).
b) I found the chapters about the formation and early years of Rome particularly interesting.
c) the author makes several interesting points about how many Roman expressions and/or attitudes remain with us today.
While not intended as criticism, the following comments might be helpful to other potential readers when deciding whether this book is for them:
1) As mentioned elsewhere, the book ends about 200 AD, well before the end of the empire.
2) The author relies heavily on letters, etc. by Cicero and Pliny the Younger. While this is not surprising given the relative volume of their correspondence (compared to other known sources), readers who are very familiar with these writers might get less out of the book.
3) While the author returns several times to the topic of the unknown history of women, the poor, etc., ultimately I found little of interest on these topics in the book, probably because lack of source materials means there is little to say.
4) Generally there is little discussion of military topics.
In any event, a very interesting and well-written piece of work about Rome.
175 of 189 people found the following review helpful.
Roman history woven with discussions of primary source material
By Michael Boyajian
Mary Beard in this book opens with Cicero attacking Cataline and ends with the granting of citizenship to all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire and goes back and forth in time from there while discussing the sources of what we know about the Romans. I have five shoeboxes filled with primary source paperbacks that cover the entire swath of Greco Roman history and what Mary Beard has done is taken the texts in those boxes combined with recent archaeological discoveries and in one place at one time written a magna opus on the Romans replacing myth with fact making it all relevant to the present time. SPQR.
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