SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

First, some mood music.

So this is an excellent tomey history, written in a sardonic “eff the patriarchy” lady's voice, and thus earning some low stars. (And thus also similar to Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History, which also made a bunch of conservative Hindu uncles pissed off, it seems.) But pay those low stars no mind. And pay the slow start of this book no mind: things are slow and kinda dry for the first 33% - 40%, but then there are BIG BIG PAYOFFS once Caesar gets stabbed.

Basically, this is a giant unpacking of all that we know of Rome, and it's a specific challenge to the Great Men-centric narratives we're more familiar with: the ones that divide Rome into a series of chapters starring evil brothers (Romulus and Remus), then kings, then senators, then emperors. Mary Beard tries to see beyond this narrative, into what the daily life was like, what the Roman concept of its own Romanness was, and how they were always busy revising their history (Make Rome Great Again!) as they were living it. As such, this is both history and historiography, with a special focus on Cicero. In fact, this book's subtitle should be “Cicero's Rome” since he's our guiding star for much of the book - well, until he gets murdered in the tumultuous first century BCE. (And, boy, does that feel like a tectonic shift from good ol' days to desaturated evil empire Rome. Also, he's beheaded and a mean lady (in the Emperor's palace? or the Senate? some mean powerful lady) pierces the head's tongue over and over with her hair pins I MEAN WTF LADY) But much of what we know of early, pre-imperial Rome, pre-Senate Rome even, was from the writings of Cicero and other contemporary authors - authors who may have had a stake in portraying it in this way or that.

Anyway, it's all amazing and much too big to be coherent about. So here are some random thoughts:
- Slavery in Rome? So weird. Lots of freed slaves buying houses, getting wealthy. There were enslaved doctors? Losing in a battle was a quick ticket to slavery.
- Germanic tribes kicked a lot of butt, despite what Gladiator would have you believe.
- There was a thing called the “Social War”, which was about other Italian cities hating Rome's expanding influence.
- They filled up the Trastevere neighborhood with water once to stage a giant mock naval battle. I mean, damn, right.
- The neighborhood Testaccio is an artificial mountain made of discarded olive oil pots I AM NOT EVEN JOKING.
- The whole Roman governor thing that we're so familiar with from Pontius Pilate, Ben Hur, all that stuff, was a relatively later thing.
- During the Senate + 2 Consuls years, they would name years after consuls: which would be like calling 2008-2016 “Years of Barack Obama and Joe Biden” and now, well, I dare not say it.
- Speaking of calendars, July is named after Julius Caesar and August after Augustus.
- My faaaave chapter may have been the one about how senators dealt with their diminishing power in the face of increasingly zany emperors (Nero!? Caligula?!). Like, by far fave chapter. We can learn a lot about politics from it!
- The “how the other half lives” chapter was also a heroic attempt at hearing the (silent) voices of the poor, of women, of basically everyone who WASN'T a senator/emperor/historian/philosopher.
- Right-wing “Make Rome Great Again” politicians hated the feminizing, high culture hipsterdom of Greek influence. i.e. There was a perceived cultural division between tough, hardy Romans and urban, hipster Greeks HAAA.
- There was an emperor from North Africa (Septimius Severus) and one from Spain (Russell Crowe? Maximus IS from Spain in that movie).
- And, okay, this isn't from the book, but I just want to say that I always find it funny that Commodus (who WAS as bad as Gladiator portrays - what a jerkface) is Commodo in Italian, which means “taking it easy” as in “basically lazy”.
- THE MYSTERIOUS ETRUSCANS?!

Recommended. Reconnecting with the classics == good values!