Mary Beard Audiobooks

SPQR: eighteen hours in ancient Rome, narrated by Phyllida Nash

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.5/5 average

11 listener ratings

Who is Mary Beard?

Four letters stamped on standards, coins and public buildings for centuries: Senatus Populusque Romanus, the senate and people of Rome. Using them as a title, as Mary Beard does, promises a history of the whole enterprise rather than a march through emperors.

Our catalogue files SPQR under classics and heritage with no further qualification, and the scale of the recording supports that reading. Eighteen and a half hours is a sweep, the length required to take Rome from something small and unremarkable to something that reorganised a continent and left its vocabulary behind.

The work is what this page can speak to, and it is more than enough.

Mary Beard in audiobooks

Phyllida Nash narrates, and ancient history in audio leans heavily on that choice, since the listener has names, offices and institutions to hold in mind with no glossary to hand. A clear reading does more for comprehension here than any amount of enthusiasm.

The mark is good, though it rests on a modest body of verdicts so far. As for where to start, the format answers the question itself: this is a long chronological listen, best taken in chapters rather than gulped, and an excellent companion to a commute measured in weeks rather than days.

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