Think of George Washington and cherry trees! Ferreting out the grains of truth they may contain is a messy and imprecise business. Mary Beard begins SPQR in the misty past when supposedly Romulus and Remus founded a dusty village on the banks of the Tiber and called it Rome, or was it Aeneas who founded Rome, the very same Aeneas who had previously escaped from Troy when the Achaean Greeks destroyed the city with a Trojan Horse? That’s a problem with foundation myths. Or closer to home, the USA has always been a Republic but it, too, has had an empire that included at one time or another Cuba, Hawaii, Alaska, and the Philippines. It, too, was a Republic, but had an empire that included parts of Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. This is not so strange if you think about France during the late 19 th century.

Until that time (about 28 BCE) Rome was a Republic but was also an empire. ” Most of this book, then, is about Rome’s growth into an empire, a process that was complete hundreds of years before Rome began to be ruled by emperors. If you think about Rome in terms of the rise and fall of the empire, SPQR is about the rise of the Roman Empire it is about “how Rome grew and sustained its position for so long, not about how it declined and fell. How can one not be interested in or curious about Romulus, the Sabine women, Caesar, Caligula and Marcus Aurelius? At 800 pages SPQR is a hefty book even in electronic format. Still its length should not deter you if you have a scintilla of interest in ancient Roman history. But beware! This book covers 1,000 years of Roman history and no matter howeconomically writtenn it is still substantial.

If you also like your history replete with vivid personalities, witty observations, and compelling narrative, you will have additional reasons to read SPQR. If you like your history presented as a vast panorama, you will likely enjoy SPQR (Latin for the Senate and the Roman People).

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