This book from Professor Mary Beard is in many respects a masterpiece, but it is also a somewhat original one because it covers the history of Rome, but only its first millennium. The period starts with its foundation, traditionally set at 753 BC, and it stops around to 212 AD, when the Emperor most well-known as Caracalla made all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire into Roman citizens, therefore changing what it meant to be “Roman” and making “more than 30 million provincials into Romans overnight”, to quote the author. The event was indeed momentous, as rightly emphasised by the author, but this was largely because of its far-reaching consequences, and these may only have appeared overtime.
It can seem odd to publish a book on the history of Rome or on the Roman Empire and stop in AD 212, knowing, as we do, that the Roman Empire continued for over two and a half centuries for its Western part, and at least a further century and a half in the East. This is where the book’s title, its meaning, and the author’s intentions are important to understand.
SPQR is the acronym of the Senate and the People of Rome. The meaning refers to a period where the Senate and the People exercised supreme power in the city of Rome, which was a city-state to begin with, then the capital city of Italy, and the capital of an Empire. It also refers to a period where they appeared to exercise such power, as was the case after the so-called “Roman Revolution” from Augustus onwards, during what used to be called the period of the Principate. This is the period where the Emperor styled himself as the “First among equal” or the Princeps - the First in the Senate, and was careful, at least initially, to preserve the appearances of the Republic and of its institutions.
However, this book is really about Roman identity and, more precisely, what it meant to be a Roman citizen, from the foundation of the little city on the Tiber to the million large city that ruled over an Empire centred on the Mediterranean that the Romans arrogantly – but aptly - called “Mare Nostrum” (“Our Sea). It is not about what it meant to be a subject of the Roman Empire, or of the Christian Roman Empire, with multiple imperial capitals and Rome being, at best, only one of them.
Here we get to the (relatively recent) divide between “Classics” and the Greco-Roman city-state model, as opposed to “Late Antiquity” which covers the Late Roman Empire up to the Arab conquests and no longer up to AD 476 only, and which is underpinned by the Greco-Asian concept of imperial power and Emperors. The reader is also “treated”, somewhat amusingly, to the “politically correct” and faintly ridiculous and hypocritical BCE and CE (Before Common Era and Common Era) that have become fashionable and which refer to exactly the same dates as BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini – Year of the Lord), except that they attempt to hide the Christian origin of the supposedly “global” and “universal” dating system.
Since this book is about the formation and the expansion of Roman identity and Roman citizenship, Mary Bard stars by examining, explaining and debunking Rome’s founding myths, most of which seem to have been elaborated between the first century BC and the first century AD. She also analyses more recent Roman founding myths, such as the so-called decisive battle of Actium, and the propaganda of Augustus. Also included is an analysis of what the Roman regimes and societies really were like – the so-called Republic started as an oligarchy and if Roman Senators cum politicians chose, at times, to become “populares”, as Caesar did for instance, it was more about power and self-interest than about genuine interest for the poor. To help with this, the author makes use of recent archaeological findings and excavations in Rome itself, and all of what used to be called (somewhat disparagingly) the other “auxiliary disciplines” such as numismatics (studying old coins) and epigraphy (studying inscriptions).
To conclude, this is a remarkable book written in a very accessible style but nevertheless with few anachronisms and not attempt to “dumb down”, as books targeted towards the so-called “general reader” and written by academic specialists sometimes tend to do. It is also a book that contains numerous and carefully chosen illustrations which are intended to elicit the reader’s curiosity and interest, such as the fake representation of Cicero’s famous appearance in front of the Senate during which he confounded Catiline. Also included are five excellent maps of Rome and its surroundings, including its Empire. Finally, there are no notes but a rather copious section for “further reading” with just about all of the key references included and commented upon for each of the book’s chapters.
There would in fact be much more to mention about this very rich book. By this point, however, I believe that anyone reading this review will have understood how valuable I found it to be and how much I recommend it. Easily worth five stars, and I would have given it more had this been possible.
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