The history of Rome is all the more fascinating for the watching the gradual end of a republic and the creation of an empire.Mary Beard
You cannot write a history of Rome without a sense of the dramatic and temporal sweep of its narrative. The Roman past is, literally, epoch-making.Mary Beard
British historians are particularly sceptical of the idea that history teaches anything much at all, apart from how complicated the world can be.Mary Beard
Writing ancient history is as much about the present as the past: our interpretations of history are driven by contemporary preoccupations.Mary Beard
Roman history is always being rewritten, and always has been; in some ways we know more about ancient Rome than the Romans did themselves.Mary Beard
We probably know much about the history of Rome because we want to find there reflections of ourselves, whether that is our religious roots in Judeo-Christianity, our political roots in systems of governance, or simply the Western conception of 'empire'.Mary Beard
Romans made their world in their own image in the sense that they remodeled the shape of their city according to their own power map.Mary Beard
In Rome power was always personal. The question was not, 'What are his policies?' but, 'Who is his slave?' or 'Who is his wife?'Mary Beard
Rome still helps us to define the way we understand our world and think about ourselves, from high theory to low comedy. After 2,000 years, it continues to underpin Western culture and politics.Mary Beard
Roman 'decline and fall' is the mirror image of British decline and fall at the hands of the savage Americans and Germans.Mary Beard