SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
by Mary Beard
(Profile Books, £25)

SPANNING 1,000 years of Roman history, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard may seem several volumes too short.

But this is clearly not intended as an exhaustive study but rather an extremely useful general introduction to ancient Rome.

For those who find it frustrating as the narrative hurtles non-chronologically from Cicero to Romulus, Vespasian and back, there are libraries full of scholarly research on any aspect of the book and Beard has provided a useful further reading list for each chapter.

What readers will enjoy is her cool eye and breezy, readable style as she conversationally guides us through the labyrinthian political infighting of the Roman senate and attempts to unravel the myths and realities of the village which became an empire.

Beard’s postmodernist questioning of the nature of evidence is also part of this book’s great pleasure.

Its title SPQR is the Latin acronym Senatus Populusque Romanus — the Roman Senate and People — and this reflects the focus of Beard’s inquiry, which not only addresses the big ideas and inevitably the “big men” of the Roman Senate and history but seeks to bring the historically neglected people into view.

The people may have been at the centre of events but they are invariably at the margins of historical narratives and physical evidence is scarce because, as Beard states: “Those with nothing leave very few traces in the historical or archaeological record.”

Intriguingly, an ancient fortune-telling kit consisting of a list of 92 questions and 1,000 possible answers tells us something of the problems and anxieties that afflicted the lives of the men and women on the ancient street who worry about death, poverty and work — so no change there.

Beard reads history against the grain, prodding grand narratives until they release an alternative story. Anyone who has heard Beard on radio or TV will know that she clearly enjoys debunking legendary figures.

Yet her take on Spartacus is not convincing. Granted that modern perceptions may have imposed an anti-slavery ideological narrative on the figure which would have been inconceivable at the time, but neither is it convincing that he and his companions were simply trying to return home.

If so, why didn’t he continue to Thrace when he arrived in northern Italy instead of heading south, gathering forces as he went?

Yet the abiding impression is of Rome’s creation story about itself speaking to us through these pages, from the Trojan refugee Aeneas to Romulus.

The latter declared the little settlement on the banks of the Tiber an “asylum” for runaways and criminals.

Thus ancient Rome was to be a city founded on asylum- seekers, a powerful cultural myth indeed.

Such revelations typify what is an enormously entertaining and provocative book. It certainly whets the appetite for further reading on the subject.