SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, Latin for "the Senate and People of Rome". It was the official name of the Roman state, and appeared on monuments, coins and standards. It is still used on the city of Rome's manhole covers.
Key takeaways
- SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, which means the Senate and People of Rome [1].
- It is first seen in inscriptions from the Late Republic, from around 80 BC onward [1].
- It was last used on coins of Constantine the Great, who reigned from AD 312 to 337 [1].
- The phrase kept appearing on monuments in the empire, including Trajan's Column [1].
How the phrase worked
SPQR is an abbreviation of Senatus Populusque Romanus, Latin for "the Senate and People of Rome" [1]. The adjective Romanus applies to both nouns together, so the sense is the Roman Senate and the Roman People, taken as one. The -que on Populus means "and". Wikipedia describes the phrase as emblematic of the government of the Roman Republic [1]. It named the state not by a king or a ruler but by its two parts: the council of leading men and the citizens.
Nobody knows when the title was first fixed. It appears in inscriptions from the Late Republic, from around 80 BC onward. Before that, coins carried only the name ROMA [1]. You find it on documents set up in stone or metal for the public to read, and on the dedications of monuments and public works. Examples include the Arch of Titus, the Temple of Saturn and Trajan's Column [1]. It also appeared on some coins.
The letters did not disappear with the Republic. They were used under the emperors, who liked to show that the old structures still existed. The last appearance on Roman coins was in the reign of Constantine the Great, from AD 312 to 337 [1]. Centuries later the city of Rome and its Senate in the Middle Ages struck coins with SPQR too [1].
Today the letters can still be seen around Rome, including on a manhole cover [1]. The Roman Senate itself changed through the empire, losing real power to the emperor [2], but the phrase survived as a symbol of the city.
An example from our data
Our slider lets you step through the years when the phrase was in everyday use. At 44 BC: Julius Caesar is assassinated; Gaul has been conquered. That was the Republic's last years, when SPQR was a living political phrase. See the year page for the map.
At AD 14, Augustus dies; Tiberius succeeds. The empire had been run by one man for decades, but the phrase was still carved into stone. And at AD 117, The empire at its greatest extent, after Trajan's eastern conquests; Trajan dies and Hadrian succeeds: this is the empire of Trajan, whose column in Rome carries the phrase [1]. The map shows 4.88 million km² at that date, the peak on the slider, with 41 provinces held. Visit the AD 117 page for the provinces. The homepage section on how the empire grew shows the path from city to empire.
The thing people get wrong
A common mistake is to think SPQR was a slogan of the emperors, or of the army. It began as a Republican phrase, naming the Senate and the people together, with no mention of any ruler [1]. When emperors took over, they kept using it, and that is why you find it on imperial monuments.
A second mistake is to read the P as "plebeians" or "patricians". It stands for Populus, the Roman people as a whole. The Senate was the second half of the pair.
Frequently asked questions
Is SPQR still used today?
Yes, in the city of Rome, where it appears on manhole covers, and on city documents and buildings.
Does the P mean the people or the plebeians?
It means the people (Populus) of Rome as a whole. The phrase names the two parts of the state: the Senate and the Roman people.
Did SPQR appear under the emperors?
Yes. It is found on inscriptions in the empire, such as on the Arch of Titus and Trajan's Column, even though the emperors held the real power.
Sources
- SPQR, Wikipedia.
- Roman Senate, Wikipedia.
- Every figure from our own map is worked out from the datasets on the data sources page (checked against Ancient World Mapping Center outlines and Pleiades).