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sethdmichaels.bsky.social · @sethdmichaels.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome 8/10

Remarkable. A popular history summing up the life's work of a veteran Roman history scholar. It's only partly, as the subtitle describes, "a history of Rome;" it's even more so a history of the history of Rome. What do we actually know and how do we know it? How does the archaeological record match up with the literary one? What did the Romans think of their own history? Who got to tell the contemporary story and how can we read between the lines of their perspective? What did the many eras of people who learned from Rome know? Lots of details about primary and secondary sources, internal politics, the view from different parts of a very vast area, and an acknowledgement that most of what we know is through the perspective of a very small set of literate, landowning, self-justifying men, and the view from women, slaves, farmers and soldiers is mostly lost to us. <br/><br/>It's also impossible to read this book and not be struck by parallels to our current political crisis. "Interpret everything today in terms of ancient Rome and vice versa" is a very old and potentially misleading game - as Beard notes, even the Romans themselves used this tactic, calling on their own history to justify their contemporary political efforts - but still, watching an unwieldy republic turn into an empire through political dysfunction is a little eerie right now.<br/><br/>Highly recommend for history nerds. It's long but it reads fast.

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Published 2026-08-18 14:47 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere