I had a friend recently ask me, “What does SBQR mean?”
The Romans had a tendency to post it everywhere within their domain, but the only websites I’ve found when searching on SBQR have to do with big, hairy gay guys.
So, what’s the deal? What does it stand for, and what does it mean?
It is SPQR - Senate and People of Rome (the Q is que, as a suffix it means “and”).
Well SBQR doesn’t mean anything that I know of, but the very common SPQR means “Senatus PopulusQue Romanus”; that is, “The Senate and People of Rome”. This in turn means the Roman Republic. In the Roman Republic (pre-Augustus) both the Senate and the people (meaning people who counted, and they knew who they were) had the real power. Post-Augustus, SPQR was still around but didn’t really mean much.
Some Roman coins were stamped “SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI”, meaning “The Senate and the Roman people to the highest prince”
<nitpicked>Senatus Populusque Romanus or Senatus Populusque Romae?
The former being The Roman Senate and People, and the latter The Senate and People of Rome. </nitpicked>
I’ve always heard that it was the former. Senatus Populusque Romanus.
Somebody told me–obviously wrongly–that it stood for words that said “For the greater glory of Rome.” Was there another series of letters for this phrase?
So Far So Good:
They may have been thinking of the abbreviation AMDG, which you see on Catholic churches sometimes.
It stands for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, which means “To the Greater Glory of God,” or something close to that.
Gee I dunno. A Web Ferret search on “Senatus Populusque Romae” turns up a grand total of 15 hits, while the same search on “Senatus Populusque Romanus” turns up 500 hits real fast, then quits 'cause I’ve got it set to stop at 500. However, the link I gave previously and LEGION XXIV MEDIA ATLANTIA GLOSSARY OF LATIN TERMS NAMES AND PHRASES and The Inscription on the Base of Trajan’s Column and Mirabile Dictu! Latin and The Encyclopedia Britannica all agree that “Senatus Populusque Romanus” translates as “The Senate and People of Rome”. Me, I don’t know; I took Latin in 1961, and did terrible.
Somewhere along the line someone though The Senate and People of Rome sounded better in English for Senatus Populusque Romanus. I probably heard that translation and back-translated it into Senatus Populusque Romae given the structure of this phrase in Latin (Nomitive Nomitive +conjunctive enclitic Genitive) ,you can see the source of my confusion 
Oh, yeah, right, of course that’s it …