SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

First published in 2015, Mary Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome offers a fresh and compelling account of the civilisation that shaped much of the modern world. Beginning with the political crisis surrounding Cicero in 63 BC, Beard traces Rome’s transformation from a small settlement in central Italy into an empire stretching across the Mediterranean and beyond. Along the way, she brings familiar figures — Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus and Nero — into vivid focus, while also recovering the lives of those often left at the margins of traditional history: women, slaves, freedmen and the conquered.

Rather than simply retelling the familiar legends of Roman greatness, Beard examines how the Romans understood their own society, power and place in the world. With characteristic wit and intellectual curiosity, she explores citizenship, empire, political violence, social inequality and the contradictions at the heart of Roman civilisation. SPQR is an expansive work of historical scholarship that makes the ancient world newly legible, revealing why Rome continues to shape our ideas about politics, identity and belonging.

From the book

“There is no single story of Rome, especially when the Roman world had expanded far outside Italy.”

— Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

On SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

“A tremendously enjoyable and scholarly read.”

— Natalie Haynes, The Observer