SPQR by Mary Beard – A History of Classical Rome from the Foundation to Caracalla

I just finished Mary Beard’s SPQR. I just started Against the Interpretation of Susan Sontag. The connection? Susan Sontag’s essay deals momentarily with the relationship, if any, between form and content. She seems to distrust the concept of form, often seeing it as subservient to content. Perhaps the confusion is mine, as it may be the argument, rather than the form, that stands out. More on this later.

SPQR is, in a nutshell, an overview of the origins and rise of Rome, from the legendary Trojan settlement to the Empire. It traces the growth of the state, from a probably mythical mud and mud hut to an empire built of marble, from its supposed founding in the mid-8th century BCE. C., until the offer of Roman citizenship of Caracalla in 212 d. C. This is approximately, as the author calls it, the first millennium of Rome.

Recalling my first paragraph, it is the form that Mary Beard imposes on her work that constitutes the book’s plot. A less inventive mind would have started at the founding of the city and progressed chronologically. Mary Beard helpfully avoids this approach by beginning with the confrontation between Scipio and Catiline in the first century BC, conveniently right in the middle of the author’s chosen era.

Catilina had led a revolt, not the first, not the last, not the bloodiest, not the most successful, against the established authority of the republic. The kings were long gone, and the emperors have not yet assumed their status. But through the confrontation between the brilliant but rather condescending Scipio and the reckless and brutal aristocratic chancellor that was Catilina, it provides a starting point for an author who wants to emphasize what she defines as the essential cultural and political characteristics that can frame the reader’s understanding of this vast imperial achievement. For Mary Beard, this trial before the Senate symbolizes a couple of basic ideas that she uses as cement to unite the different courses of the city’s history. These are the continuing struggle for power together with the surprising, uninitiated, but consistent, tendency of the Roman state to accommodate new ideas, new values, new religions, and new citizens of those peoples it conquered.

The struggle for power was perpetual and merciless. There were no rules other than winner take all and then suffer the continual neurosis of how to hold on to it. Beginning with the perhaps mythical fratricide that founded the city when Romulus killed Remus, ruling families or elites internally turned against themselves and each other to secure their grip on power. This is nothing special. Any visitor to Istanbul will vividly remember the rows of miniature coffins that were displayed when newly enthroned sultans got rid of their brothers to reduce potential competition. But Rome was, in extent at least, quite different, as it transformed from local warlords, perhaps, through kings, to republican presidents, in all but name, and finally to emperors. Each manifestation of power brought with it its own kind of struggle, but ultimately they were all struggles, and they usually involved the elimination of competition. The names and roles may have changed, but the methodology has not. You killed to come to power and you killed to keep it. There were, of course, exceptions.

The second characteristic that Mary Beard uses to create the form and therefore the content of this story is the Roman propensity for assimilation. This began with the rape of the junipers. The myth, perhaps, cites a shortage of reproductive-age females among early settlers, so what better way to sidestep the problem than to engage in cattle rustling? The logic, if that’s the word, is quite simple. I have no cows My neighbor has cows, so I will steal them. It’s the same with women, it seems, and loot seems to share the same status as loot from a cattle raid.

But what occurs is change. Inevitably, there is a clash of cultures that leads to accommodation and assimilation, resulting in cultural complications through marriage, even if it is a chain marriage. This process, the author argues, became a feature of Rome, in the sense that forcibly subjugated kingdoms and peoples were culturally assimilated by Rome, and not necessarily destroyed by it. In fact, some aspects of the defeated culture, such as its religions, were transported back to the center, where they gained pragmatic adherents eager to try anything that might offer a competitive advantage. And it is this constant ability to change through assimilation that forms the second thread that shapes this wonderful work.

But why end Caracalla, when the Roman empire endured for more than a century after his demise? Mary Beard has it clear. It was Caracalla’s granting of Roman citizenship to all free men in the empire that turned things around. Until then, the differences in status between men and women, between citizens and classes, between free men and slaves, between the military and civilians, had marked the limits of Roman life, limits that were undoubtedly fluid by virtue of the capacity of the people to be on one side or the other. and change their relative status, gender aside. Mary Beard therefore argues that the later years of the empire represent a different historical reality and therefore warrant a different treatment. This change became even more evident when the state adopted Christianity, which admitted no alternative and led to the conscious exclusion of further assimilation.

Mary Beard offers the reader many details. But her insistence on placing events in her larger political and cultural context really clarifies a bigger picture that then begins to reveal interrelated details. By the end of SPQR, we felt like we’d been there.

In conclusion, Mary Beard cautions against importing values ​​or solutions perceived over the centuries in the belief that they might have relevance to contemporary society. Not only do we not really understand the values ​​of this ancient era, nor do we have enough material to be sure of anything. Rome did exist and is therefore worthy of study, but her example is relevant only for the furtherance of that specific study.

Form and content come together to create, in the hands of Mary Beard, a dazzling and brilliant book that provides context, observation, and deep insight into Roman history. It is a book that could only have been written by someone who has brilliant communication skills and perhaps unsurpassed knowledge of their subject. This book is not recommended reading: it is nothing short of essential.