A review by takumo_n
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

5.0

Incredibly informative, clear and fast paced account of the rise of Rome. Something that, let's be honest, we most certainly don't know jack about. Unless you did some college courses on this topic, highschool never makes the cut, at least not for me. It starts with its fundation, with the seven monarchs, to the Republic, the transition to power from Julius Caesar to Augustus, and then the famous fourteen emperors, and then it gives an epilogue of the fall of Rome, in eight pages, basically sending you to read other books because that part has been written to death, fine by me. Even the parts that you think are gonna be boring, like the distribution of wealth among the citizenship, the administration of public buildings, how the provinces were governed, etc, are engaging as everything else, it's really something. I didn't know that the Chirstians appearing in the Empire wasn't that well known or documented, let alone the origins of the religion, which is a shame.

In Rome there was no doctrine as such, no holy book and hardly even what we would call a belief system. Romans knew the gods existed; they did not believe in them in the internalised sense familiar from most modern world religions. Nor was ancient Roman religion particularly concerned with personal salvation or morality. Instead it mainly focused on the performance of rituals that were intended to keep the relationship between Rome and the gods in good order, and to ensure Roman success and prosperity. The sacrifice of animals was a central element in most of these rituals, which otherwise were extraordinarily varied.