I almost gave up on this book in the first few chapters. Before you stop reading, it ends up being brilliant so don't stop just yet. Why did it take so long to get into it? Mary Beard writes like an academic who assumes you already know things. Names, dates, political structures, references to sources you've never heard of. The first fifty pages were truly a chore.
Then I just pushed through and googled points that did not make much sense. I stopped trying to absorb every detail and started reading for the bigger picture. I tried to read a chapter every day and after a while I really got into it and it became one of the most fascinating reads I've had in a long time.
What It's About
SPQR covers roughly a thousand years of Roman history from a small settlement on the Tiber to the empire that shaped the Western world. But it's not a dry timeline. Beard is more interested in how Romans lived, what they believed, who they included, who they excluded, and how they thought about themselves.
The title stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus which means "The Senate and People of Rome." It's the phrase stamped on everything from coins to sewer covers. Beard uses it as a lens: what did it actually mean to be Roman?
What Stood Out
The thing that surprised me most is how current it all feels. If we strip away the togas and the gladiators and you're left with debates that could be happening today. We have immigration, citizenship, who belongs and who gets a voice. It goes into how power corrupts and how institutions bend to accommodate the people running them.
Rome was far more diverse than most people imagine. As the empire expanded, so did the definition of "Roman." People from North Africa, the Middle East, Gaul, Britain were all absorbed into a system that was remarkably flexible about identity, at least compared to what came after. Beard makes this point repeatedly and convincingly. Rome was a machine that consumed cultures and repurposed them instead of simply being a single culture.
There's also a thread I enjoyed about how the Greeks saw the Romans. The Greeks considered themselves the civilised ones. To them, Romans were upstarts. They were barbarians with good engineering. It's a useful reminder that the dominant power isn't always the one with the most respect—sometimes they're just the ones with the most roads.
What Didn't Work
Beard's academic style takes getting used to. She'll spend pages dissecting a single inscription or debating whether a source is reliable (although I did enjoy the side eyeing of the writer on the reliability of the source). This is definitely not a novel, it's history so it is still dense yet Beard makes it feel like a fun journey through 1000 years long ago.
There are also moments where the sheer volume of names and political factions becomes overwhelming. I stopped trying to remember every consul and just focused on the patterns instead so that helped. I still get guilty when someone mentions a famous Roman figure and I don't know what they did.
The Toilets
I have to mention this because it stuck with me. The Romans were brilliant engineers. Aqueducts, roads, concrete, central heating. But their toilets were communal, shared, and by modern standards, horrifying. Beard includes details about Roman sanitation that are both impressive and deeply unsettling. It's a good reminder that civilization is not a straight line. You can build an empire and still have questionable plumbing.
Who Should Read This
If you want a neat, dramatic retelling of Roman history then it's probably better to read a novel. If you want to actually understand how Rome worked—how it governed, expanded, adapted, and ultimately transformed—then SPQR is the book.
It rewards patience. The first few chapters are the hardest. Push through them and you'll find yourself thinking about Rome in ways that feel uncomfortably relevant to the present.
Rating: 4/5
Lost a point for the steep entry. Earned everything else through depth, insight, and a perspective that made a thousand-year-old civilization feel like it has something to say about right now.
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