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SPQR
A History of Ancient Rome
Mary Beard's SPQR examines how a small settlement in central Italy became the center of a vast and durable imperial system. Moving from Rome's uncertain beginnings and foundation legends through the Republic and early Empire, Beard asks how Roman power worked, who counted as Roman, and how conquest transformed both rulers and subjects. The account gives major figures such as Cicero, Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Caracalla their place without reducing Roman history to a procession of celebrated men. Political institutions, slavery, citizenship, migration, family life, religion, urban conditions, and social inequality are integral to the story. Beard also repeatedly exposes the difficulty of reconstructing antiquity from partisan texts, monumental self-presentation, inscriptions, coins, and incomplete archaeology. Ending in 212 CE, when Caracalla extended citizenship to almost all free inhabitants of the empire, SPQR presents Rome as a changing political community rather than a fixed mod…
