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SPQR

Mary Beard, 2015

Beard traces Rome from a small Tiber settlement to an empire that granted citizenship to every free inhabitant, tracking how Romans argued about power, citizenship, and identity.

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19 parts, about 36 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Asks how a small village in central Italy came to rule three continents, and shows Rome expanding into a world already full of violence
  • Separates myth from evidence in Rome's founding legend, kings and early Republic, drawing on the Twelve Tables and a surviving epitaph
  • Traces the Republic's collapse into civil war and one man rule, then ends with the edict that made every free inhabitant a citizen

Who it is for

  • Readers who want Roman history told with honest doubt
  • People curious how one city built an empire
  • Readers weighing what Rome can and cannot teach today

What the summary covers

  1. Rome's Enduring Puzzle2 min
  2. Cicero's Finest Hour3 min
  3. Beginnings: Romulus, Remus, and the Sabines3 min
  4. The Kings and the Birth of the Republic2 min
  5. Rome's Long, Messy Republic2 min
  6. How Rome Conquered Italy2 min
  7. Warfare, Wealth, and the Wider World1 min
  8. The Gracchi and the Road to Civil War2 min
  9. The Social War, Sulla, and Spartacus2 min
  10. Verres, Pompey, and Caesar's Rise2 min
  11. The Ides of March1 min
  12. From Civil War to Augustus2 min
  13. Augustus's Blueprint for One Man Rule2 min
  14. Fourteen Emperors2 min
  15. Rich and Poor in the Roman World2 min
  16. Governing an Empire2 min
  17. Toward Universal Citizenship2 min
  18. 212 CE: The First Roman Millennium1 min
  19. Beard's Closing Reflection1 min

Recommended by

  • Bryan AppleyardBritish journalist and author
    Fast-moving, exciting, psychologically acute, warmly sceptical
  • Natalie HaynesEnglish writer, broadcaster and classicist
    Vastly engaging ... a tremendously enjoyable and scholarly read.
  • Thomas HodgkinsonReviewer for The Spectator
    Ground-breaking ... invigorating ... revolutionary ... a whole new approach to ancient history

About the author

  • Mary BeardEnglish classicist specialising in ancient Rome, former Cambridge professor of classics
    • Born on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire.
    • Took her PhD at Cambridge in 1982 with a thesis on the state religion of the late Roman Republic.
    • Lectured in classics at King's College London from 1979 to 1983, then returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a Fellow of Newnham College.
    • Became Professor of Classics at Cambridge in 2004 and retired from the university in 2022.
    • Is classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, for which she writes a regular blog called A Don's Life.
    • Won the Wolfson History Prize in 2009 for Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town.
    • Was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2018 for services to the study of classical civilisations.
    • Was appointed a trustee of the British Museum in 2020.

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