Book Review: SPQR

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The snob in me was prepared to hate this book. Like a learn-ed history teacher probably should.

But, me, I am not so learn-ed. And my knowledge of Rome was spotty, at best. SPQR helped me put everything together in a chronological order that finally helps me understand Rome.

See, it's not just empire. First it was a city-state run by Etruscan kings. Then there was the Lucretia incident, a likely mythical tipping point for Roman citizens to overthrow their foreign king and form a republic (I actually played Lucretia in the Britten opera once but never quite made the connection as to what point of Roman history all of it...too busy learning notes and blocking to learn history; shame). The Roman Republic was born at approximately the exact same time as Athenian democracy, but neither was glorious and fully formed at any point in history; at best, it was always a bunch of rich people struggling to retain their power. Then Julius Caesar is murdered, because they were worried he was becoming too powerful, and Octavian becomes Augustus Caesar, who became the power-concentrated-in-one-person those who killed Caesar feared.

Beard puts all of this together in an attractive narrative that gives just enough detail to keep me interested and intrigued but not so much as to overwhelm. I'm what she knows about Rome that she left out of this book would fill volumes.

As usual, the greatest pleasure of history is the interesting trivia about things I've never thought about before.

Like the word "Aborigine" comes from ab origine meaning "from the beginning."

Or September comes from "7th month" (October, 8th, November, 9th, December (10th) because the old Roman calendar was structured differently and then suffered from development as they were continuously challenged to find a way to keep time that was consistent but also matched with the natural rhythms of the world, which has 365 1/4 days in a lunar year (back then, once in a while, they'd add an extra month to get things back on track; now we add an extra day every four years)

Or the fact that, of course, they did not calculate time like we do. BC, AD, BCE, CE; all a product of our modern sensibilities applied after-the-fact to ancient times. Romans usually referred to dates by the names of the consul who held office.

Or the fact that in the 4th century BCE, the base of the main platform for speakers in the Forum was decorated with the bronze rams of enemy warships captured from the city of Antium during the Latin War. The Latin word for "rams" is rostra, from where we get the word "rostrum."

Or the idea that the very idea of an electoral government is flawed because of the eternal conflict over whether the elected official is a "delegate," bound to vote exactly the way the people who elected him wish him to, or a "representative," elected to exercise his own judgement.

I'm writing this review 3 full days after I finished the book and I've already forgotten 80% of what I learned.

So I'll have to read it again. Then again. Then one more time. And I suspect it will be enjoyable each time because I'll have forgotten that I learned all this once or twice before. Everything old is new again.


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