SPQR is a grim success story, but one told with wonderful flair.-Greg Woolf 'Wall Street Journal' By the time Beard has finished, she has explored not only archaic, republican, and imperial Rome, but the eastern and western provinces over which it eventually won control.She moves with ease and mastery though archaeology, numismatics, and philology, as well as a mass of written documents on stone and papyrus.-G. The ancient Romans, Beard shows, are relevant to people many centuries later who struggle with questions of power, citizenship, empire, and identity.-Emily Wilson 'The Atlantic' Beard tells this story precisely and clearly, with passion and without technical jargon.

Her magisterial new history of Rome, SPQR. Exemplary popular history, engaging but never dumbed down, providing both the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life.- 'The Economist' Beard does precisely what few popularizers dare to try and plenty of dons can't pull off: She conveys the thrill of puzzling over texts and events that are bound to be ambiguous, and she complicates received wisdom in the process. Sifting myth from fact in dealing with the early history of the city, she enlivens-and deepens-scholarly debates by demonstrating how the Romans themselves shaped their legendary beginnings to short-term political ends.

Beard is a sure-footed guide through arcane material that, in other hands, would grow tedious.

Spqr a history of ancient rome