A review by erebus53
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

3.25

I book that I picked up for book club, it was certainly informative. Perhaps not as much information on the roles of women in Roman society as I would have hoped for, but plenty of wry humour. I was surprised about how much of what I knew about Roman culture came from reading Asterix, and how close to the mark some of it was.

The book does really start to drag at about the 65% mark, and ridiculous things like being "adopted" by a person who has been dead for a decode so as to cement authority is one of the dafter things I have heard of in a while.

One of the most saddening quotes that resonated with me was : 
What all would have agreed, both rich and poor, was that to be rich was a desirable state, that poverty was to be avoided if you possibly could. Just as the ambition of Roman slaves was usually to gain freedom for themselves, not to abolish slavery as an institution, so the ambitions of the poor were not radically to reconfigure the social order but to find a place for themselves nearer the top of the hierarchy of wealth. 

If you ever think that looking back at history is not exactly relevant to modern day then you aren't looking hard enough.
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