Because the author is such an expert linguist who is exceedingly comfortable in her field, she is able to step back to see the entire Roman world. What they failed to do was establish a policy of succession, instead leaving it to luck, improvisation, plots, and, usually, violence. Beard writes of the reformers who fed the people and instituted laws of compensation for abuse. However, they continued to conquer peoples, took slaves and bounty, and made their men part of the army and, eventually, citizens. As the author points out, they didn’t even have maps. The rulers of Rome never planned a land grab to build an empire. The author provides a broad overview of how events from the rape of Lucretia to Caracalla’s granting of citizenship to everyone (except slaves) strengthened and eventually weakened the empire.
This is no simple chronological biography of rulers.
As in her previous illuminating works, she is no myth builder she is a scholar who reaches down-to-earth conclusions based on her years of dedication to her subject. More importantly, she sorts the many myths from history. Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up, 2014, etc.) writes fascinatingly about how Rome grew and sustained its position.
The acclaimed classicist delivers a massive history of ancient Rome, which “continues to underpin Western culture and politics, what we write and how we see the world, and our place in it.”īeard (Classics/Cambridge Univ.
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