• About Me
  • Contact Me
  • Policies
  • Welcome

Novelhistorian

~ What's new and old in historical fiction

Novelhistorian

Tag Archives: ancient Rome

The Grandeur That May (Or May Not) Have Been: SPQR

01 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ancient Rome, Augustus, empire, Julius Caesar, Latin, Mary Beard, misconceptions, republic, Roman politics, Shakespeare, why Rome matters

Review: SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard
Liveright/Norton, 2015. 536 pp. $35

I’ve been waiting for this book from the library for quite a while, and I’m happy to say it’s magnificent (from Latin, magnificare, “to magnify”). Lately, I’ve been trying to learn Latin, which involves chores like repeating, ad infinitum, the ablative ending in the imperfect tense, but also treats, like deciphering snippets of Julius Caesar’s account of the Gauls. SPQR reminds me why I bother, and why Rome matters, even for people who would never get within a mile of a Latin grammar.

But if you venture here–and I heartily recommend that you do–be prepared to abandon preconceived ideas. “Rome,” as Beard declares early on, “was not simply the thuggish younger sibling of classical Greece,” devoted to engineering, war, and moral absolutes, whereas the Greeks favored intellectual inquiry, theater, and democracy. Morever, she notes, praise for Greece at Roman expense began with the Romans themselves; throughout SPQR, she quotes skeptics who criticized laws, common behavior, military misadventures, garish buildings, or corruption. So much for absolutes.

The so-called Prima Porta statue of the Emperor Augustus, 1st century CE, now in the Vatican. Note the martial attire and the baby, probably an image of Romulus, the city's legendary founder (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

The so-called Prima Porta statue of the Emperor Augustus, 1st century CE, now in the Vatican. Note the martial attire and the baby, probably an image of Romulus, the city’s legendary founder (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

SPQR is the acronym for Senatus PopulusQue Romanus (“the senate and the Roman people”), the motto of the republic that the empire largely ignored. However, if the senate in imperial times ceased to be a legislature, in a typical delightful passage, Beard argues that it still had a function:

Senators were essential to the running of the empire. Among their number were most of the emperor’s friends, advisors, confidants, dinner guests and drinking partners–as well as the men who, second only to his own family, were likely to become his successful rivals, vociferous opponents and assassins.

She also corrects or casts doubt on many stories handed down over generations. Apparently, the dying Julius Caesar did not say, “Et tu, Brute,” as Shakespeare has it, but admonished Brutus in Greek, perhaps calling him a child. (The meaning is ambiguous.) Nor was Brutus “the noblest Roman of them all,” having left a trail of murder and extortion as governor of Cyprus. Was the Emperor Claudius the just, forward-thinking, moderate ruler Robert Graves portrays in his marvelous novels? Not if you include the executions of thirty-odd senators and a dice habit for which Claudius had his carriage rebuilt so he could play while on the move. Did Nero really make his horse a senator? Probably not.

A more nuanced portrait emerges in these pages. Despite xenophobia, which could be extreme, Rome expanded the definition of citizenship well beyond the Greek model to include not only residents of lands far outside the city but, by 212 CE, thirty million others living in provinces throughout the empire. Like all ancient cultures, the Romans took slaves, but they also freed many, an unusual policy that drew admiring commentary from contemporaries, an explanation of how the Romans insured political loyalty in their vast empire. Under the republic, a system of checks and balances among the senate, the consuls who had monarchical powers, and the common folk assured that no one force would always have the upper hand–at least, according to Polybius, the astute Greek historian who lived in Rome. Once an adult woman’s father died, she could own property, buy or sell, inherit, make a will, or free slaves, legal rights that compare favorably with those of any Englishwoman before 1870.

But Beard insists that Roman accomplishments or failures aren’t what make its history worth knowing and discussing. Their legacy, she says, goes far beyond political structures, art, famous public works, literature, or philosophical ideas. It’s that they talked about the same issues we do, so much so that the questions they asked sound as if they were taken from today’s headlines.

For instance, despite severe income inequality and upper-class snobbery toward the poor, under the republic, politicians spent large sums courting lower-class voters. They also honed rhetorical techniques to win them over at public meetings called contiones, said to be noisy, stormy occasions. That in itself raises comparisons to our political system, but there’s more. At one such contio, around 125 BCE, the hot issue was whether to grant citizenship to the Latin tribes outside the city. Beard quotes one opponent haranguing the crowd, “‘I mean, do you think there will be any space for you, like there is now, in a contio or at games or festivals? Don’t you realise they’ll take over everything?’”

Beard has convinced me. To consider Roman history means to reflect on our own problems.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Recent Posts

  • The Prince Who Could Not Speak Up: Lampedusa
  • Hard Life Lessons: Dominicana
  • Love, Theft, Hate: The Sisters of Summit Avenue
  • Which Side Are You on, Boys?: The Women of the Copper Country
  • To Have Her Own Story: That Churchill Woman

Recent Comments

Which Side Are You o… on Get Out of Dodge: Doc
Novelhistorian on Five Years, and I Still Haven…
Sarah Johnson on Five Years, and I Still Haven…
Five Years, and I St… on Past Lives: Old Baggage
Five Years, and I St… on Mythic Seduction: Once Upon a…

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Comment
  • Reviews and Columns
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blogs I Follow

  • Rewriting History
  • Damyanti Biswas
  • madame bibi lophile recommends
  • Barda Book Talk
  • History Imagined
  • Suzy Henderson
  • Flashlight Commentary
  • Reading the Past
  • Diary of an Eccentric

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 128 other followers

Follow Novelhistorian on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • The Prince Who Could Not Speak Up: Lampedusa
  • Hard Life Lessons: Dominicana
  • Love, Theft, Hate: The Sisters of Summit Avenue
  • Which Side Are You on, Boys?: The Women of the Copper Country
  • To Have Her Own Story: That Churchill Woman

Recent Comments

Which Side Are You o… on Get Out of Dodge: Doc
Novelhistorian on Five Years, and I Still Haven…
Sarah Johnson on Five Years, and I Still Haven…
Five Years, and I St… on Past Lives: Old Baggage
Five Years, and I St… on Mythic Seduction: Once Upon a…

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Contents

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Rewriting History

How writers turn history into story, and story into history

Damyanti Biswas

For lovers of reading, writing, travel, humanity

madame bibi lophile recommends

Reading: it's personal

Barda Book Talk

Book Reviews

History Imagined

For Readers, Writers, and Lovers of Historical Fiction

Suzy Henderson

What's new and old in historical fiction

Flashlight Commentary

What's new and old in historical fiction

Reading the Past

What's new and old in historical fiction

Diary of an Eccentric

writings of an eccentric bookworm

Cancel