SPQR (Beard) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for SPQR:

1. What are some parallels you noticed between the culture and politics of ancient Rome and our own society?

2. Mary Beard refers to exploring ancient Rome as "walking a tight rope, a very careful balancing act." What does she mean?

3. Talk about the city's double nature: its impressive achievements (e.g, architecture, legal system) versus its squalid aspects (e.g., filth, slavery).

4. Beard, in writing about Edward Gibbon's 18th-century Decline and Fll of the Roman Empire, comments that Gibbons "lived in an age when historians made judgments." She assures us, however that she will not be making judgments. Does she adhere to this promise—is she judgment-free? Whatever your answer, is it a weakness or a strengtth of her writing?

5. Why does our understanding of Roman history matter?

6. Beard says that the rulers of Rome never planned to build an empire (they didn't even have maps). What, then, was the impetus to continue conquering more land and subjugating more people until it controlled what seemed to be the whole of the inhabited world? What was the secret of its success?

7. Follow-up to Question 6: Perhaps a better question than the above is what made Rome great?

8. What was Rome's stance on immigration? Did it's openness to foreign people weaken or strengthen the empire? Any parallels to today?

9. What happened to the Roman Republic? How did it fall and lead to the rise of autocracy, to Octavian and dynastic rule?

10. Talk about e a few of the longstanding myths that Beard debunks. What about Cleopatra's suicide, for instance?

11. How much did you know about Rome before reading SPQR? What have you learned that surprised you or, perhaps, supported what you already understood about the ancient world? What struck you most in reading Beard's history?

12. Much is made about Beard's humorous approach to the history of Rome. What did you find funny?

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)