As Mary Beard points out in her prologue to SPRQ: A History of Ancient Rome, there are so many vestiges of Roman life everywhere in our society: slogans and titles, notions of government and freedom, familial relations, and even humor. Long ago as ancient Rome may have been, its influence maintains a deep and noticeable presence. “After 2,000 years,” Beard writes, “it continues to underpin Western culture and politics, what we write and how we see the world, and our place in it.” To better understand ancient Rome, then, is in a sense to better understand ourselves. Beard serves as a highly competent guide to help us do just that. She takes us on a roughly 1,000-year journey, from the beginning of Rome in 753 BC, all the way to 212 AD, the year in which the emperor Caracalla granted citizenship to all free inhabitants.
A professor of classics at Cambridge University, SPRQ is Beard’s twelfth book, and her most comprehensive. Though an academic she often writes for a wide audience, as evinced in Confronting the Classics (2012), and many other books. The style of this book is no different. Beard writes in a tone that is scholarly and learned, yet unencumbered by needless technicalities. It is a pleasure to read and a great general guide for nearly all aspects of ancient Rome.
Part of Beard’s impetus for writing SPQR (which stands for Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, the Latin for ‘The Senate and People of Rome’) is to add her voice to a long conversation about Roman history. It’s a history, she tells us, that is fluid and ever-changing, our knowledge of it guided by archaeological discoveries, shifts in modern perspectives, and a willingness to think about and reflect on the nature of the Romans.
To kick things off Beard begins with the monumental year of 63 BC. It was the year in which the upstart Cicero gave his famous speech denouncing Catiline, the traitor who planned to murder senators and set fire to the city. Or so the standard view goes. Beard shows us that it might not have been so clear and simple. There’s Cicero’s perspective, but there is also Catiline’s, and in the latter’s narrative we can see glimpses of a downtrodden economy that might have contributed to at least some of his motivations.
In keeping with these two figures, Beard introduces us to the nature of Roman politics and what it took to vie for a political position. Whereas Catiline was from a politically privileged background, Cicero was not (though he was still from a well-off family). This didn’t exclude him from holding power, but it did make for a different route in acquiring it. Indeed Cicero began his political career as a novus homo, “one without political ancestry,” and therefore “had to [rely] on his native talents and the high-level connections he assiduously cultivated.” To see Cicero’s career play out is to learn much about 1st-century BC Rome.
Traveling way back in time, Beard then goes at some length in discussing Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome. Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s first-century BC epic Aeneid, also figures heavily into this broad discussion on history and myth. Beard makes it clear that there is no single narrative of Romulus and Remus (Livy and Cicero, for example, provide different accounts); nor, really, is there any evidence to suggest that these were actual historical figures. But Beard’s discussion is a sensitive one, and she is careful to point out the innumerable ways in which Rome’s mythical past affected its people. She writes, “To understand the ancient Romans, it is necessary to understand where they believed they came from and to think through the significance of the story of Romulus and Remus.” Beard is right to emphasize this point: for the beginnings of Rome come up again and again throughout the centuries, including, as Beard makes clear in her subsequent discussion of Rome’s regal period, later Romans’ strong feelings about kings. Beard writes that “For the rest of Roman history [referring to after the death of Tarquin Superbus] ‘king’, or rex, was a term of loathing in Roman politics.”
In the roughly middle parts of the book Beard examines the growth of early Rome. The transition from the regal period into the Republic, she cautions us, was probably quite muddied and complex, despite often being portrayed by later Roman writers as a rather seamless transition. The Romans were not shy about rewriting or reimagining the past in ways that favored them. This is not to say that they were unconcerned with accuracy (indeed much of what they wrote is incredibly helpful to us). But undoubtedly there were times when Roman writers reflecting on the past would present it and color it in certain ways.
This is something to keep in the back of our minds (as Beard makes sure we do) when considering the Twelve Tables, ‘Conflict of the Orders,’ political reforms, and the Latin and Samnite Wars. All of this is examined quite thoroughly by Beard. And, as in early chapters, she does an honest job sifting through evidence, weighing alternative views, and presenting it all to us, the general reader, in a way that is both enlightening and enjoyable.
As Beard gradually transitions from the Republic to the Empire, we step into a Roman world which many readers are probably quite familiar with — or at any rate more familiar with than some of the arcane figures of Rome’s earliest beginnings. Here we get discussions on Rome’s civil wars, Caesar’s grand accession and bloody assassination, Augustus and his status as princeps, and a host of other seminal characters and events. Beard also brings into these discussions information on literature, art, economics, politics, and family life. Her chapter “The Home Front” is particularly enjoyable, and offers a refreshing look into the lives of ordinary Roman citizens — a nice change from emperors and other politically powerful figures.
SPQR is a lengthy book that covers a tremendous amount of ground. Beard tackles issues big and small, from the pivotal Punic wars to the more banal matters of everyday Roman life. One of the strengths of the book is that it allows readers to see the Roman world from a broad, panoramic view. Indeed reading SPQR is a chance to get to know Rome inside and out. While the book does have its minor weaknesses — it might have profited from better organization and pacing — it is a well-written, thorough, and illuminating history of ancient Rome that does not disappoint.
Liveright; 1 edition (September 6, 2016); 608 pgs.
Spectatio 