[books 2016] SPQR
12. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
I have very little interest in ancient Rome itself but a lot of interest in matters around the periphery (both temporally and spatially), and my knowledge of the core history of the Roman Empire was probably 20 years out of date, so when this came out I decided that a one-volume history for the general reader was exactly what I needed to give myself an up to date grounding.
Obviously, I am not a classicist so I can't comment on accuracy, but she has been a prof at Cambridge since forever so I assume it can't be too shabby.
It's very readable. A lot of it is more basic than I needed, but that's a risk I always run with histories for a popular audience. I did learn that bread and circuses didn't work the way most people think, and I had previously failed to appreciate to what extent the Eastern part of the empire never did adopt Latin language and culture. I *still* don't understand the Catiline conspiracy with which Beard opens the book (I think the take-home is I don't care and my brain switches off) but I take her point that you can't trust the sources. I also have difficulty working up to caring about the Senate and Roman politics, so for me the best bits were the chapters on how the common people lived and (naturally) contact with non-Roman peoples and assimilation (or not) into the empire.
I have very little interest in ancient Rome itself but a lot of interest in matters around the periphery (both temporally and spatially), and my knowledge of the core history of the Roman Empire was probably 20 years out of date, so when this came out I decided that a one-volume history for the general reader was exactly what I needed to give myself an up to date grounding.
Obviously, I am not a classicist so I can't comment on accuracy, but she has been a prof at Cambridge since forever so I assume it can't be too shabby.
It's very readable. A lot of it is more basic than I needed, but that's a risk I always run with histories for a popular audience. I did learn that bread and circuses didn't work the way most people think, and I had previously failed to appreciate to what extent the Eastern part of the empire never did adopt Latin language and culture. I *still* don't understand the Catiline conspiracy with which Beard opens the book (I think the take-home is I don't care and my brain switches off) but I take her point that you can't trust the sources. I also have difficulty working up to caring about the Senate and Roman politics, so for me the best bits were the chapters on how the common people lived and (naturally) contact with non-Roman peoples and assimilation (or not) into the empire.