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SPQR is an initialism from a Latin phrase, Senātus Populusque Rōmānus ("The Senate and People of Rome", see translation), referring to the government of the ancient Roman Republic, and used as an official emblem of the modern day comune (municipality) of Rome. It appears on coins, at the end of documents made public by inscription in stone or metal, in dedications of monuments and public works, and was emblazoned on the standards of the Roman legions. The phrase appears many hundreds of times in Roman political, legal and historical literature, including the speeches of Mārcus Tullius Cīcerō and the history of Titus Livius. Since the meaning and the words never vary, except for the spelling and inflection of populus in literature, Latin dictionaries classify it as a formula.
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In Latin, Senātus is a nominative singular noun meaning "Senate". Populusque is compounded from the nominative noun Populus, "the People", and -que, an enclitic particle meaning "and" which connects the two nominative nouns. The last word, Rōmānus ("Roman") is an adjective modifying Populus: the "Roman People". Thus, the sentence is translated as the more literal "The Senate and the Roman People", or alternatively as "The Senate and the People of Rome".
The phrase's date of origin is not known, but its meaning places it generally after the founding of the Roman Republic. The two legal entities mentioned, Senātus and the Populus Rōmānus, are sovereign when combined. However, where populus is sovereign alone, Senātus is not. Under the Roman Monarchy neither entity was sovereign. The phrase, therefore, can be dated to no earlier than the foundation of the Republic.
This signature continued in use under the Roman Empire. The emperors were considered the representatives of the people even though the senātūs consulta, or decrees of the Senate, were made at the pleasure of the emperor.
Populus Rōmānus in Roman literature is a phrase meaning the government of the People. When the Romans named governments of other countries they used populus in the singular or plural, such as populī Prīscōrum Latīnōrum, "the governments of the Old Latins". Rōmānus is the established adjective used to distinguish the Romans, as in cīvis Rōmānus, "Roman citizen". The locative, Rōmae, "at Rome", was never used for that purpose.
The Roman people appear very often in law and history in such phrases as dignitās, maiestās, auctoritās, lībertās populī Rōmānī, the "dignity, majesty, authority, freedom of the Roman people". They were a populus līber, "a free people". There was an exercitus, imperium, iudicia, honorēs, consulēs, voluntās of this same populus: "the army, rule, judgments, offices, consuls and will of the Roman people". They appear in early Latin as Popolus and Poplus, so the habit of thinking of themselves as free and sovereign was quite ingrained.
The Romans believed that all authority came from the people. It could be said that similar language seen in more modern political and social revolutions directly comes from this usage. People in this sense meant the whole government. The latter, however, was essentially divided into the aristocratic Senate, whose will was executed by the consuls and praetors, and the comitia centuriāta, "committee of the centuries", whose will came to be safeguarded by the Tribunes.
During the regime of Benito Mussolini, SPQR was emblazoned on a number of public buildings and manhole covers in an attempt to promote his dictatorship as a "New Roman Empire".
Use of SPQR has been revived in modern times, throughout Europe and beyond.
SPQx is sometimes used as an assertion of municipal pride and civic rights. Reggio Emilia, for instance, has SPQR in its coat of arms, standing for "Senatus Populusque Regiensis". There have been reports of SPQx from:
A joke in the Vatican tells that Pope John XXIII asked a bishop about the meaning of SPQR, displayed on the personal coat of arms of the Pope, read backwards RQPS. He answered the question himself with: "Rideo Quia Papa Sum" ("I laugh, because I am the Pope").
A humorous backronym of the initialism is the Italian phrase "Sono pazzi questi Romani", which translates into "These Romans are crazy." This phrase is said by Obelix in many translations of Goscinny and Uderzo's of Asterix the Gaul. The original phrase in French was "Ils sont fous ces Romains".
Other Italian backronyms include:
Another humorous meaning is "Small Profits, Quick Returns".
In the movie Gladiator (2000), 'SPQR' is seen marked on the left shoulder of Maximus when he is in the slave trader's camp and when he tries to carve it out of his own skin when Juba asks him 'Is that the sign of your gods?'. It is also seen on the entryway into Rome when Commodus returns as its new emperor.
In the books The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune, 'SPQR' is branded into the left arm of all Roman demigods. Annabeth identifies it as the motto of the Roman Empire.
In the October 1st, 2011 episode, "The Wedding of River Song", of the British TV show Doctor Who, the letters SPQR are seen inscribed on buildings, marked on coats of arms, and stitched onto banners all over the alternate-reality city of London, when many time periods are occurring at once. The assumed reason for the letters being present is the fact that Winston Churchill is the Holy Roman Emperor, due to the fact that many aspects of Roman culture are present in this alternate reality.
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