SPQR

Mary Beard's 2015 history of Rome from its origins to 212 CE — when all free inhabitants of the empire became citizens — focusing on Roman political culture, social life, and the paradoxes of Roman identity rather than battles and emperors.

Creates the most intellectually honest modern account of Rome — Beard's approach questions rather than celebrates Roman myth (the founding of Rome, the Rape of the Sabines) and focuses on the ordinary Romans who built the empire rather than the elite.