SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

History and Sociology of Ancient Rome.

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 s...