Darwin8u's Reviews > SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

"Roman historians complained about almost exactly the same issue as the modern historian faces: when they tried to write the history of this period, they found that so much of importance had happened in private, hater than publicly in the senate house or Form as before, that it was hard to know exactly what had taken place, let alone how to explain it."
- Mary Beard, SPQR



Senātus PopulusQue Rōmānus (SPQR)

I've been reading a bunch of classics the last couple years. I'm right in the middle of the Loeb Livy, enjoyed the last couple years reading Caesar, Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch, Gibbon, etc. I've also read a bunch of the more modern historians like Goldsworthy, Everitt, etc. But, I've been remiss in reading more books on the classics written by women. Mary Beard is a good place to start. She is about as close to a British Public Intellectual as you can get. She appears regularly on BBC and is known far outside of the academic, ivory covered towers of Cambridge (where is a professor of classics).

There wasn't much in this book that was new. In many ways, this book wasn't built on the new. It is a review, instead, of the first millennium of Rome. She covers the common ground from Rome's foundational myths to Caracalla gave Roman citizenship to all inhabiting within the Roman empire about 1000 years later in 212 CE. She hits all the highlights from Romulus and Remus to the Caesars and Cicero. She examines the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch and dozens of others. Her skill, really, is taking a more modern approach to Roman history and placing a bit of skepticism in some of the myths, and not just the obvious ones. She wants to look behind the words spoken by those in power, and beyond the words written by ancient historians. She also puts serious effort in discussing Roman slaves and women, despite the scant records. She wants to spend at least some time looking at the P in SPQR. It is hard to "do" Roman history and avoid BIG MAN history since most of what remains was written by or about BIG MEN. But she makes a serious effort in expanding the reader's view of Rome beyond what is carved in Marble.

That said, it wasn't a GREAT (5-star) survey. It was very good, no doubt, but it was just also a bit tame (both in prose and depth). It broke little ground and seemed at times to be solid, just not amazing. It was a well-constructed arch (see Constantine's Arch), just not a gigantic mosaic. It is important more than memorable. It was, however, good enough to keep and to inspire me to add both Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations and The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found to my to-read list.