SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

Having spent 4 years in high school, lots of years ago, learning Latin, or trying to, I have always been fascinated by Rome and its history. All that's left today is my memory of the first few sentences of Caesar's Gallic Wars. With whatever bias that creates, I enormously enjoyed this book, which made human beings of all the personalities I read and heard about way back then and the lives they led. Less enthusiastic reviewers appear to focus on two issues. One, is that Beard is a typical Leftish English academician who is distorting history to make points about our current politics. Perhaps. After all, she's an academic, which is almost a synonym for lieftish. The question is whether she wrote a ood book. I think she did (and I am certainly not a leftish academician). I haven't done the studying which would be required to discredit her presentation. She has quite obviously spent lots of time reading other histories, and Latin (and Greek letters, books and inscriptions. I don't claim to know whether her occasional references to purported similarities between those times and ours are valid, but I would be surprised to hear that humans had changed much since those relatively recent times. And, frankly, I found them kind of interesting. The other complaint of some reviewers is that Beard was constantly noting that no one really knows the history of ancient Rome. All we have are clues, which sometimes conflict with other clues. I don't understand that objection--of course we can't know for sure what what happened in the middle of the West Coast of Italy. We don't even know for sure what is happening today in our own country--all we have is what we're told by others. It's like reading an Editorial in the New York Times and thinking you have all the facts you need. Now add 2,000 years to that uncertainty. And toss in the point of which she frequently reminds the reader--that the person who wrote some letter, book or inscription undoubtedly had biases, or wanted to persuade the reader of something about which there was doubt or uncertainty. Or maybe was just plain wrong. Do you believe everything thing our politicians and their enablers say? Perhaps needless to say, I found the writing engaging, and was interested in the parallels she found between the lives of people--important and otherwise--back then and now.

Mary Beard is perhaps the best known and most popular historian of Ancient Rome. After reading SPQR, I can understand why. Although, not without flaws, SPQR presents a concise and very readable history of Ancient Rome from its beginnings (legendary and otherwise) to the year 212. SQPR advances more or less in historical order. For each broad period, it discusses culture, society, and history before it jumps to another period. While some have called the book “revisionist,” to my mind it does an excellent job of presenting different hypotheses—some traditional and some new. While this is not a page turner in the classic sense of the term, it is well-written and easy to read. Beard covers the major battles and political events, however much of the book focuses on what we know and do not know about Rome’s people, its subjects, its society, and its culture. She does an impressive job bringing together archeological evidence, documents, and common sense to reconstruct Ancient Rome. Her aim, as she explains, is to show a full portrait of ancient Rome, based on what we know and on our current thinking. In other words, the history of “the Senate and People of Rome” the English rendering of the SPQR. Before 390 BCE or so, we only have Rome’s founding myths and legends. Beard looks at these stories and at many different elements of archeological evidence. This allows her to put together a number of different possibly histories of the early history. Did Romulus found Rome after being raised by a she-wolf and killing his twin brother? No. But many of the origin stories and legends may have some basis in fact. As the book moves forward, it focuses more and more on what we know from the documentary evidence and tries to answer questions about the period. For example, how revolutionary or populist were Julius Caesar or rabble rousers like Clodius? How dedicated was Brutus and friends to the cause of liberty? How did Romans transfer large sums of money? Or how many people really knew how to read and write (20%?). Beard offers a great deal of insight about the Roman republic, both as it rises to power and is it falls into civil war and political chaos. I found her discussion of the rise of warlords (Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, etc.) quite engaging. As Rome became richer and more powerful, it was transformed from an oligarchic republic to a failed state. More money, greater inequality, and less stability. To my mind, the books starts to lose its steam after the reign of Augustus Caesar (31 BC to 14 AD). Augustus (who was still called Octavian), through cunning and military force, is able to stabilize the republic and create a monarchy that restores the peace. Beard explains in detail how Augustus sets up his republican monarchy, along with its compromises and accommodations. However Beard provides little discussion of what happens next. While she does outline the reigns of the twelve legitimate emperors from Tiberius to Caracalla (there were two short civil wars during this period), it is done in short form. Possibly Nero and Domitian were not as bloody as history tells us; perhaps Caligula was not as mad as much as maddening (to the Roman elite). There is a good discussion of the expansion of Christianity in its first two centuries. Beard also discusses the expansion of “Romanization” as the empire expands. The narrative ends in 212, the year that Caracalla grants citizenship to the entire free population. This was on the cusp of the so-called “Crisis of the Third Century.” As Beard herself points out, it is not clear why citizenship was extended or what this meant in practice. I think that this date was chosen because the empire that emerged after sixty years of revolts and civil wars was a very different sort of place with very different rules. It is not an entirely satisfactory answer but at some point the book does have to end. Looking back two thousand years, it is quite common to ask what we can learn from Rome or if we (our civilization) is falling like the Roman Empire fell. Mary Beard argues that there is little that we can directly learn from Rome. From this book, I learned that a lot of modern institutions that we take for granted—ranging from targeted social safety nets to a proto-nation state to the republican government that is really an authoritarian dictatorship—have their origins in Ancient Rome. Certainly, we are not destined to repeat anything but there is much that we can learn.

Reading during COVID-19 has allowed me to catch up a bit (though certainly not all) on my backlist of books to read. I suppose I had deferred reading SPQR because despite positive reviews I thought the material might be a bit too dry. I was wrong (again). SPQR is for the most part a fascinating dive into Roman history from its earlier days until a few centuries after the birth of Christ. What makes the book so accessible is the conversational style of author Mary Beard, who not only knows the material cold but is very adept in explaining it in an engaging and non-condescending manner. I would enjoy having been a student in one of her university classes. The reader is treated to a truly remarkable cast of characters from Romulus & Remus (did they really exist?) to Julius Caesar to Marc Antony to Cicero to Augustus (I never knew my birth month was named after this first Roman emperor) to Nero and so many others. Beard readily admits many times during this book how little evidence exists to make definitive judgments about leading figures, events, and Roman life at various times. Still, it is remarkable how seemingly inconsequential archaeological findings can reveal so much. And these findings continued close to the publication of the book and presumably have continued to this day. Beard does much with what she has to work with to draw strong portraits of Roman leaders. The book allows you to look past the marble statues (a significant number of which apparently do not reflect the actual visage of the figures) to the weaknesses and frailties of leaders to remind us how human they were – flaws and all. Yes, at times, the reading does go a bit into the weeds, but author Beard then quickly pulls us out and places us on the road to find out. As a relative novice, I found this overview book to provide me a wonderful introduction into all things Roman. Thanks to her bibliographic sources at the end of the book and other sources, I will now focus on a few key events and figures to further my knowledge.

This book is a masterpiece of history. Exciting, easy to understand, and comprehensive. An effortless, satisfying read. When we don’t know exactly what happened, she explains the various theories so we can move on. But it’s never boring or tedious. She moves things right along. She more or less debunks some of the most famous crazy stories about erratic behavior of some of the emperors, which is probably a good thing since it’s probably true. But, without all of that fun sadism, underlying suffering, and bizarre behavior, it’s not quite as exciting. But she at least tells you where you can get it if you want it. So, Suetonius it is. :-) Also, the Audiobook for this is perfectly done and extremely fun to listen to. It was so interesting to listen to that I rarely felt compelled to speed it up as has often happened with other Audiobooks that drone on and on and on about stuff that doesn’t interest me and I just want to get through. She was perfect.

A ubiquitous commentator on affairs both ancient and domestic in her native Great Britain, Mary Beard is something of an institution. Her latest written work, SPQR, is an interpretive history of ancient Rome aimed at a lay audience. Beard eschews a strictly chronological narrative in favor of a more thematic approach, peppering her history with insights and personal perspectives. It seems to me that any prospective reader should already have a firm grasp on the basics of Roman history, although the litany of awards SPQR has garnered, including New York Times Bestseller status, suggests that many disagree. Beard begins her history at the dawn of Roman civilization and ends with Emperor Caracalla’s grant of citizenship to everyone living in the empire in 212 AD. She starts by writing that Rome’s seven kings were likely more myth than reality. It is highly unlikely, she says, that just seven men served over the course of 250 years. It is noteworthy, she says, that many of the enduring features of Roman life were introduced by the kings. “Abominated as they were, kings were credited with creating Rome,” Beard writes. For instance, Numa created much of Rome’s religion and Servius Tullius developed the census and the associated centuriate assembly system that gave weight to the wealthier classes. Moreover, some of the kings were clearly Etruscan in background, which underscored from the earliest days that Roman leaders could come from outside of the city, a key theme of Roman self-identify. Much like the United States, Rome was a city of asylum where anyone could rise to the top. Next Beard turns to the Republic, which she is quick to note did not spring full grown in the wake of the rape of Lucretia in 509 BC. Rather, she argues, it took centuries for the Republic of Cicero’s day to develop. Major turning points occurred in the early fourth century BC. First came the Roman destruction of Veii, Rome’s Trojan War, in 396, and then the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BC. The pattern of conquest and fear of conquest was thus established, she writes. “Roman military expansion drove Roman sophistication.” The sophistication in building the massive defensive walls around the city and the logistics of incorporating large contingents of allied forces required “infrastructure unthinkable in the fifth century.” Next, in 367 BC, the plebs were allowed to stand for the consulship. Henceforth, Beard writes, being a patrician “carried a whiff of snobbery attached to it and not much more.” Beard agrees with the historian Polybius who saw the Roman political system as responsible for the success of the city during the Republic. The mixed constitution provided the state with strength and stability. She writes that the tradition of ancestor worship and the competition for political office and military spoils is what drove the expansion of empire, not any formal plan of imperial conquest. It was a coercive empire, she says, not one of annexation. The Latin word imperium meant “the power to issue orders that are obeyed,” and that is what the Roman’s did. However, the influx of conquered people and wealth would challenge what it meant to be traditionally Roman. Next, she points to the year 146 BC as a turning point, the year both Carthage and Corinth were razed. Roman violence was suddenly turned inward, beginning with the controversial tribunates of the Gracchi brothers. The road to Augustus, she claims, runs directly from the brothers to Marius versus Sulla and then Pompey versus Caesar. Each did their part to undermine key elements of the Republican system that led inexorably to dictatorship. The feud of the Gracchi brothers introduced violence to the domestic political process. The reforms of Marius allowed men without property to serve, thus turning the army into “a new style of personal militia” directly controllable by only the commanding general. Sulla added the military march on Rome and Roman soldiers spilling Roman blood, not to mention proscriptions and reviving the dictatorship. Pompey, for his part, climbed to the top of the political system outside of the natural order of the Republic, gaining commands without officially holding office. Caesar was just a culmination of his predecessors’ careers. Beard affirms the remarkable legacy of Augustus in the transition from Republic to Empire, “a puzzling and contradictory revolutionary.” Perhaps his greatest reform – and certainly his most expensive – was the introduction of pensions for soldiers. No longer were the Roman legions dependent on their commander for taking care of them. Now after 20 years of service soldiers received 12 years salary or the equivalent in land. The reform cost an estimated 450 sesterces or half of the annual imperial income. But it effectively removed the army from politics, at least for the time being. Augustus also made the Senate hereditary for three generations and allowed the Senate’s bills to have the weight of law. Now that Augustus was solely responsible for receiving positions in the imperial infrastructure, elections slowly died off and the old patron/client system, once the bedrock of Roman society and politics, was rendered nugatory. Although Augustus held the consulship 13 times, the position had largely become symbolic. The Roman Republic was dead but kept alive as fiction by filling old positions and offices. Or as Beard explains it, “Augustus was cleverly adapting the traditional idioms to serve a new politics justifying and making comprehensible a new axis of power by systematically reconfiguring the old language.” Concerning the first two centuries of emperors, Beard writes that for all of their idiosyncrasies and outlandish behavior they were far more similar than they were different. “There is no sign at all,” she writes, “that the character of the ruler affected the basic template of government at home or abroad in any significant way.” Moreover, “there was hardly any such thing as a general policy for running the empire or an overarching strategy of military deployment.” The emperor did represent a new tier in the structure of command, but “his role was largely a reactive one; he was not a strategist or forward planner.” The truth was that the emperorship provided “a remarkably stable structure of rule,” at least for the first two centuries of the empire. Between ascension of Augustus in 31 BC and the assassination of Commodus in 192 AD there were just 14 emperors (not counting the three short-term emperors of 69 AD). In a period half as long, between 193 and 293, there were no fewer than 70. For all of its stability, however, succession was an enduring challenge, as naming a new emperor always came down to “some combination of luck, improvisation, plotting, violence and secret deals.” In closing, SPQR is a marvelous synthesis of one renowned scholar’s take on one thousand years of Roman history. I’ve read much Roman history, particularly the Republican period, but I learned a lot from SPQR. I suspect Beard has delivered something very few authors can, a learned piece of scholarship that advances our understanding of Roman times that is as much admired by her academic peers at is enjoyed by the general educated public.

Mary Beard writes in an engaging and easy-to-read style. Reading this book felt like I was "reading" a historical documentary series. My main problem with this book is its organization and presentation. I was looking for a comprehensive history of Rome that would be more interesting to read than a Wikipedia article. Who did what; when did they do it; what were the major accomplishments of each emperor; and what major military battles, religious movements, or political scandals shaped the Roman Empire? Instead, Beard goes for a "snapshot in history" approach: she'll name-drop a few important historical figures, skip explaining why they were important or what they did, and then try to delve into what life was like for ordinary people during that decade or so. This approach is very good at conveying the Roman mindset and lifestyle, but it is not good for actually explaining the history of Rome, which is what I wanted. So many historical events are merely hinted at or glossed over; she spends paragraphs and paragraphs describing the psychological underpinnings of Romulus killing Remus, but never actually relays the story of the founding myth. She name-drops Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Scipio, etc etc, but does very little to explain why they were important. Most frustratingly, she jumps around in the chronology quite frequently; the book starts in 63 BC, then backtracks, then leaps forward. This is NOT a good introductory book for the history of Ancient Rome.

I've read a good amount of history books on the Greek and Roman times.I found this book to contain a number of strong points that made it worth reading. First, the author extends the timeline of the Roman people back into their own "mythic" period, dealing with the multiple legends of founders. This is something I had never heard dealt with coherently in a book. Second, the book presents this and other kinds of information in a similar manner- explaining the reasons why what you may have thought may be biased by assumptions or "story" that have less basis in fact that is really true. Plus, the idea of multiple "versions" of history is something dealt with head on, even the possible sources of these things. Third, the narrative style is much more engaging than typical history books, which makes it so the reader won't lose a sense of where they are in the story, which brings me to another point I liked about the book- it is largely chronological. Aside from the initial start of the book, you go from mythic foundations to the end of the stable era of the emperors. This was helpful to me. On the things I liked less about the book- I expected this book to be more technical and scholarly in approach. It's fine that it was more for popular reading, but the author continuously returns to critiquing why other views and approaches are wrong... Almost universally saying "we can't know because the evidence is limited " as her typically response. I'd expect that kind of regular digression in a college book not a pop history. Besides , the writing begins with a somewhat lengthy and awkward example that doesn't serve the narrative of her history as well as the author is implying it does. In the end, the research and information was good, but the writing feels not as strong as the content trying to be communicated. Worth reading, but this era is still searching for a de facto "standard" work from the modern era that goes beyond the legendary work of previous eras and legends.

Mary Beard writes in a breezy, often anecdotal, style which makes her book both informative and entertaining. SPQR covers the history of ancient Rome from its founding by Romulus to the reign of Emperor Caracalla, who, in the year 202 A.D. granted Roman citizenship to the entire free male population of the empire. This is a very ambitious work and is well worth reading. Beard not only delves into the history of ancient Rome, but also has a lot to say about its sociology. She concerns herself not only with the famous personages but also with the lower classes and their lives, with long glimpses of what went on in the bars and eateries where the ordinary people hung out. In one such establishment in Pompeii, there was a frieze picturing seven notable Greek philosophers, but rather than discussing deep philosophical topics, they are depicted as giving scatological advice. She also writes extensively on the conditions of women, slaves and freed slaves. Beard at times seems to have a cynical attitude toward the Romans; at least, toward the movers and shakers. For example, she says about the civil war between Caesar and Pompey: “The irony was that Pompey, their figurehead, was no less an autocrat than Caesar. Whichever side won, as Cicero again observed, the result was to be much the same: slavery for Rome. What came to be seen as a war between liberty and one man rule was really a war to choose between rival emperors.” Personally, I have a bit of difficulty swallowing this, because Pompey, as egotistical as he was, had ample opportunities to march on Rome and take over as dictator in the manner of Sulla and Caesar, but he never did. And if Cato the Younger, arguably the most obstinately principled notable in history, believed that Pompey had the same ambitions as Caesar to become an autocrat, we would have declared “plague on both your houses” and stayed home rather than followed Pompey into exile. Beard relies on the writings of Cicero for much of her analysis, and she gives him extensive coverage in SPQR. This is understandable since more of Cicero’s writings have survived than any other writer of his time. Beard has no liking for Augustus, and at one point refers to him as a “reptile.” She does make it very clear that he was a man of remarkable gifts, able to walk that tightrope of Roman power and gaining support of the Roman elite where his Great Uncle Julius Caesar failed to do so. It probably helped that the proscriptions of the second triumvirate killed off most of the opposition. Under Augustus’ rule the Senate ceased to be a governing body and turned into a sort of civil service. Any opposition that wasn’t killed off was bought off. She describes Augustus as “a poacher turned game keeper.” Beard also makes the point that during the next two hundred years after the end of the Republic it didn’t really matter who the emperor was or whether he was “good” or “bad.” I need to take some issue with that notion as well. If an emperor was particularly rapacious, as in the case of Nero, it could cause considerable unrest in the provinces. It was Nero’s instructions to confiscate the lands and possessions of Prasutagus, the husband of Boudicca, upon his death, that led to Boudicca’s rebellion which destroyed three Roman cities and killed an estimated 70 to 80 thousand Romans and Britons. One wonders if the same thing would have happened under a less rapacious Emperor. One suspects that Nero’s rapaciousness was also one of the causes of the full scale revolt that took place in Judea toward the end of his reign. None of the 14 emperors during this period were really “good” by modern standards, but some were more rapacious than others, and the quality of the emperor did have an effect on the running of the empire. SPQR is a meaty work with a lot of events, analysis and ideas to digest. It gives the reader a vivid insight into the various lives of the Romans, from emperor to slave.