Boston Athenæum

November 11, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum. Boston Athenæum began collecting Neoclassical art shortly after its establishment in 1807. At the time Neoclassicism was a hugely popular artistic movement, due in part to the romanticized view of the United States’ system of government being modeled on Greco-Roman and Enlightenment ideals. Mary Beard’s S.P.Q.R.: A History of Ancient Rome provides insight into the realities of the ancient Roman world and thereby context for understanding the 19th-century Neoclassical movement. By 63 BCE, the city of Rome was a sprawling, imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants. But how did this massive city—the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria—emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In S.P.Q.R., Beard changes our historical perspective, exploring how the Romans themselves challenged the idea of imperial rule, how they responded to terrorism and revolution, and how they invented a new idea of citizenship and nati