SPQR: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROME PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Mary Beard | 608 pages | 07 Apr 2016 | Profile Books Ltd | 9781846683817 | English | London, United Kingdom SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome PDF Book Documentation, documentation, documentation. The same fundamental mechanisms, structures and dynamics run on until AD then there is a shift towards late antiquity and a Christian Empire, implicitly something so deeply different that it would require another book. There is nothing on the crucifixion. It was the empire itself, Beard persuasively argues, that ultimately produced the rule of the emperors. Community Reviews. Birthplace of so many impressive inventions we take for granted nowadays. I knew vaguely of names and the fact the Roman Empire existed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. One thing became clear quite quickly: thanks to the combined efforts of Monty Python and Eddie Izzard, I am entirely unable to take the ancient Romans in any way seriously. But expansion put great power in the hands of individual commanders. Or the sixteenth? I used to read a ton of it but, for reasons I can't recall or explain, I stopped quite a few years ago, focusing entirely on fiction. I loved reading this. Archived from the original on 13 August I just remember the stories and find everything absolutely fascinating. In short this book was both a fascinating insight in to Roman history but also exposed how certain forms of governance have not changed in all these years. Senatus Populusque Hibernia. She tries to fill in the blanks by offering alternative interpretations of what may have happened. But taking the chapter "Fourteen Emperors" as an example, she is so busy letting us know where Suetonius's Twelve Emperors might be faulty, we never get a clear idea of the fourteen emperors between Tiberius and Commodus. This book came recommended by a friend so I dove right in. The History Book The chapter is also a blueprint for her methodology: having given a brisk tour of the various sources and the routes by which they may have come down to us through time, her next section asks, pertinently enough, might there not be another side to the story? Maybe it is a book worth additional consideration. Starting with Romulus and Remus she gives exactly the background the general reader wants. Elvis Presley is a giant figure in American popular culture, a man whose talent and fame were matched only by How loaded an account does Cicero offer? Senatus Populusque Viennensis [8]. Sep 14, Sam Quixote rated it it was ok. An anxiety about what exactly it means to be Roman seems to drive many texts of the period. There have been confirmed usages and reports of the deployment of the "SPQ x " template in;. I wanted to know more, and that is sure as hell what I got. Mary Beard's history of the first thousand years or so of ancient Rome never flags, maintaining a brisk, engaging tone and offering a level of detail just right for a general audience. She returned to Cambridge in as a fellow of Newnham College and the only female lecturer in the Classics faculty. People tell me, oh but it's such a good basis for learning other Romance languages. But reflecting on the ways they perceived and organised their world is a valuable reminder that concepts we take for granted — the nation state, for instance — are the product of particular historical circumstances. It's all very mysterious but Beard shows us something of the concerted effort he went to in establishing a brand and in making it near impossible for anyone else to do what he did - to come in from the margins and establish a political machine around himself. I enjoyed reading this and made short work of it. I think it's the fairest, best Roman history book you could find if you don't want a textbook and want a fair representation of history. Archived PDF from the original on 29 October But she makes a serious effort in expanding the reader's view of Rome beyond what is carved in Marble. But seriously, there's a lot of interesting facts that make me wonder whether the original tales of a city founded on liberty and the forceful taking of nearby tribe's women might not have been a fanciful tale, too. Return to Book Page. She isn't doing revisionist history neither of them emerges as being someone you would particularly like to know but Beard succeeds brilliantly in making the reader re-think alternative narratives for each emperor, interpretations that portray them in a less over-the-top way than usual. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Writer Few scholars though ever get to be original, perhaps the last time any one could be truly original was back in the BC years and even then not often and far less often than people claimed. Beard's verve and passion for the subject make SPQR great pleasure to read. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. Archived from the original on 4 November View all 34 comments. No one has ever written a book on the Declaration quite State 2. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I wanted to broaden my literary horizons again and to explore some areas I'd previously neglected. This covers a lot of history, from looking at specific rulers and significant figures to significant events and founding myths to more broad questions like the wealth divide in Rome, Roman perceptions of themselves, and the impact of Christianity on later Rome. View all 59 comments. When the alleged words of Boadicea come down to us, and we find out that the person who wrote them down lived years after her, how can we trust them? I do wish I'd had Ms Beard as a Latin teacher instead of Dr Cameron, one of the few and to our eyes ancient male teachers at the all girls' high school I went to. Liveright Publishing Corporation. The author has incorporated some of the latest research. Archived PDF from the original on 29 October Perhaps there is nothing to be known of Augustus and what he thought or knew about it. I never quite saw what the point of it was, except to give us the honoured badge of 'culture'. Welcome back. I feel this is destined to become a classic in its field. Oh my god so much history I can't focus The antithesis of Gibbon. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Reviews Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist". Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. But expansion put great power in the hands of individual commanders. It appears on Roman currency , at the end of documents made public by an inscription in stone or metal, and in dedications of monuments and public works. But the idea that nothing much happened thereafter until the well-recorded 'fall' was that in the fifth century? Good stuff! Paperback , pages. If you have never studied Classics or Ancient History formally then this will give an up-to-date insight into where and how the discipline is currently situated. Beard's verve and passion for the subject make SPQR great pleasure to read. Granted, I was wary at first. So in the end I walked away with a profound hole in my historical knowledge I am only now realising and trying to rectify. View all 15 comments. Still Beard says in a way he was nothing new. In spite of her incessant, unsubstantiated opinions, in spite of her chatty conjectures, in spite of her tenuous statements directly followed by her own contradictory analytics, Mary loves talking to herself in spite of the absolutely needless references to contemporary culture and politicians, Mary Beard's "SPQR" is worth reading with a golf-ball size grain of salt if one is a devout Roman history nerd, a blizzard is raging outside your window and the snowplows have yet to drop by. On the Grand Theatre. Add to Wishlist. Beard's book is a useful one that will be relied upon as a popular history for years to come. Like the best detectives, Beard separates fact from fiction, myth and propaganda from historical record. I then questions how this story shapes what it means to be Roman. It covers the status of women. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Read Online Shelves: published , winter , nonfiction , roman-civilisation , history , decfree-for-all , ancient-history , lifestyles-deathstyles. Archived from the original on 8 February In short this book was both a fascinating insight in to Roman history but also exposed how certain forms of governance have not changed in all these years. I just love everything about it from an organization standpoint. Mark Antony was in thrall to Cleopatra — or so Augustus alleged of his rival. This was a mechanism which engaged diverse elites across the Mediterranean world and created a double citizenship - one could be a citizen of Rome and of any other city in which you happened to have been born and raised and have access to a different sets of rights. I recently resolved to start reading more nonfiction again. Beard is ever alert to linguistic nuance, sharing with her readers the point of Roman jokes and nicknames, teasing out the significance of a board game or an epitaph. Very well indeed. Although she analyzes Rome's beginning, she does it from the point of view of Ciceros era because of the availability of records.