Sublime
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Servius Tullius is supposed to have devised the method of counting and rank-ordering the Roman people known as the census.
Mary Beard • SPQR
Pompey has a good claim to be called the first Roman emperor.
Mary Beard • SPQR
Octavian exploited these fears in a dramatic intervention in 32 BCE. Antony had divorced Octavia earlier in the year, and Octavian responded by getting his hands on Antony’s will and reading out particularly incriminating selections from it to the senate. These revealed that Antony recognised young Caesarion as Julius Caesar’s son, that he was
... See moreMary Beard • SPQR
At the end of 45 BCE he caused a particular stir when the death of one of the sitting consuls was announced on the very last day of the year. Caesar instantly convened an assembly to elect one of his friends, Caius Caninius Rebilus, to the vacant post for just half a day. This prompted a flood of jokes from Cicero: Caninius was such an
... See moreMary Beard • SPQR
What was at stake for the Romans was whether they could win in battle and then whether – by persuasion, bullying or force – they could impose their will where, when and if they chose. The style of this imperium is vividly summed up in the story of the last encounter between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Romans. The king was invading Egypt for the
... See moreMary Beard • SPQR
The Res Gestae is a rich source of detail about Augustus’ career and the Roman world of his day. It starts with a delicately euphemistic description of his rise to power, which entirely omits any mention of the pogrom (‘I liberated the state oppressed by the power of a faction’ is how he refers to his clash with either Antony or Brutus and
... See moreMary Beard • SPQR
By the mid second century BCE, the profits of warfare had made the Roman people by far the richest of any in their known world.
Mary Beard • SPQR
Clio
Harold T. Harper • 7 cards