Sallust

Sallust was probably born in Amiternum in Central Italy,^[3][4][5] though Eduard Schwartz takes the view that Sallust's birthplace was Rome.^[6] His birth date is calculated from the report of Jerome's Chronicon.^[7] But Ronald Syme suggests that Jerome's date has to be adjusted because of his carelessness,^[7] and suggests 87 BC as a more correct date.^[7] However, Sallust's birth is widely dated at 86 BC,^[4][8][9] and the Kleine Pauly Encyclopedia takes 1 October 86 BC as the birthdate.^[10] Michael Grant cautiously offers 80s BC.^[5]

There is no information about Sallust's parents or family,^[11] except for Tacitus' mention of his sister.^[12] The Sallustii were a provincial noble family of Sabine origin.^[4][5][13] They belonged to the equestrian order and had full Roman citizenship.^[4] During the Social War Sallust's parents hid in Rome, because Amiternum was under threat of siege by rebelling Italic tribes.^[14] Because of this Sallust could have been raised in Rome.^[11] He received a very good education.^[4]

Early career

After an ill-spent youth, Sallust entered public life and may have won election as quaestor in 55 BC.^[15] However, the evidence is unclear; some scholars suggest he never held the post.^[5][16][17] The "earliest certain information" on his career is his terms as plebeian tribune in 52 BC, the year in which the followers of Milo killed Clodius. During his year, Sallust supported the prosecution of Milo.^[18] He also organised "ferocious street demonstrations" to exert public pressure on Cicero, intimidating him into "giving a substandard performance",^[19] seeing Milo leave the city into exile. In this year, he, with the other ten tribunes, all supported a law to permit Caesar to stand for a second consulship in absentia.^[20]

Syme suggests that Sallust, because of his position in Milo's trial, did not originally support Caesar.^[21] According to one inscription, some Sallustius (with unclear praenomen) was a proquaestor in Syria in 50 BC under Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus.^[22] Mommsen identified this Sallustius with Sallust the historian, but Broughton argued that Sallust the historian would not have been an assistant to Caesar's adversary or, as an ex-plebeian tribune, have taken the lowly title legatus pro quaestore.^[23]

Sallust's political affiliation is unclear in this early period,^[24] but after he was expelled from the senate in 50 BC by Appius Claudius Pulcher (then serving as censor), he joined Caesar.^[25] He was removed on grounds of immorality, but this was likely a pretext for his opposition to Milo during his tribunate.^[26][25]

Caesar's civil war

During the civil war from 49 to 45 BC, Sallust was a Caesarian partisan, but his role was not significant; his name is not mentioned in the dictator's Commentarii de Bello Civili.^[27] Plutarch reported that Sallust dined with Caesar, Hirtius, Oppius, Balbus and Sulpicius Rufus on the night after Caesar's crossing the Rubicon into Italy in early January.^[28] In 49 BC, Sallust was moved to Illyricum and probably commanded at least one legion there after the failure of Publius Cornelius Dolabella and Gaius Antonius.^[10][27] This campaign was unsuccessful.^[27] In 48 BC, he was probably made quaestor by Caesar, automatically restoring his seat in the senate.^[10][29] In late summer 47 BC, a group of soldiers rebelled near Rome, demanding their discharge and payment for service. Sallust, as praetor designatus and serving as one of Caesar's legates,^[30] with several other senators, was sent to persuade the soldiers to abstain, but the rebels killed two senators, and Sallust narrowly escaped death.^[19]

In 46 BC, he served as a praetor^[31] and accompanied Caesar in his African campaign, which ended in another defeat of the remaining Pompeians at Thapsus. Sallust did not participate in military operations directly, but he commanded several ships and organized supply through the Kerkennah Islands. As a reward for his services, Sallust was appointed proconsular governor of Africa Nova, either from 46–45 or for early 44 BC.^[31] It is not clear why: Sallust was not a skilled general; the province was militarily significant. Moreover, his successors as governor were experienced military men. However, Sallust successfully managed the organization of supply and transportation, and these qualities could have determined Caesar's choice.^[32] As governor he was so corrupt and avaricious that –on his return in late 45 or early 44 BC^[33] – only Caesar's dictatorial influence enabled him to escape conviction on charges of corruption and extortion.^[34] On his return to Rome he purchased and began laying out in great splendour the famous gardens on the Quirinal known as the Gardens of Sallust (Latin: horti sallustiani), which were later inherited by the emperors.

Retirement

Gardens of Sallust

Due to those charges and without prospects for advancement, he devoted himself to writing history,^[25] presenting his historical writings as an extension of public life to record achievements for future generations.^[34] His political life influenced his histories, which produced in him a "deep bitterness toward the elite", with "few heroes in his surviving writings".^[35] He also further developed his gardens, upon which he spent much of his accumulated wealth. According to Jerome, Sallust later became the second husband of Cicero's ex-wife Terentia.^[36] However, prominent scholars of Roman prosopography such as Ronald Syme believe this is a legend.^[37] According to Procopius, when Alaric's invading army entered Rome they burned Sallust's house.^[38]

Discover more about Life and career related topics

Amiternum

Amiternum

Amiternum was an ancient Sabine city, then Roman city and later bishopric and Latin Catholic titular see in the central Abruzzo region of modern Italy, located 9 km (5.6 mi) from L'Aquila. Amiternum was the birthplace of the historian Sallust.

Eduard Schwartz

Eduard Schwartz

Eduard Schwartz was a German classical philologist.

Jerome

Jerome

Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome.

Chronicon (Jerome)

Chronicon (Jerome)

The Chronicon (Chronicle) or Temporum liber was a universal chronicle written by Jerome. It was one of his earliest attempts at history. It was composed c. 380 in Constantinople; this is a translation into Latin of the chronological tables which compose the second part of the Chronicon of Eusebius, with a supplement covering the period from 325 to 379. Despite numerous errors taken from Eusebius, and some of his own, Jerome produced a valuable work of universal history, if only for the example which it gave to such later chroniclers as Prosper of Aquitaine, Cassiodorus, and Victor of Tunnuna to continue his annals. In conformity with the Chronicon of Eusebius, Jerome dated Creation to 5201 BC.

Ronald Syme

Ronald Syme

Sir Ronald Syme, was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roman Empire since Edward Gibbon. His great work was The Roman Revolution (1939), a masterly and controversial analysis of Roman political life in the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Michael Grant (classicist)

Michael Grant (classicist)

Michael Grant was an English classicist, numismatist, and author of numerous books on ancient history. His 1956 translation of Tacitus's Annals of Imperial Rome remains a standard of the work. Having studied and held a number of academic posts in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, he retired early to devote himself fully to writing. He once described himself as "one of the very few freelancers in the field of ancient history: a rare phenomenon". As a populariser, his hallmarks were his prolific output and his unwillingness to oversimplify or talk down to his readership. He published over 70 works.

Cursus honorum

Cursus honorum

The cursus honorum was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts; the ultimate prize for winning election to each "rung" in the sequence was to become one of the two consuls in a given year. Each office had a minimum age for election; there were also minimum intervals between holding successive offices and laws forbade repeating an office.

Quaestor

Quaestor

A quaestor was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times.

Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher

Publius Clodius Pulcher was a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the time of the First Triumvirate. One of the most colourful personalities of his era, Clodius was descended from the aristocratic Claudia gens, one of Rome's oldest and noblest patrician families, but he contrived to be adopted by an obscure plebeian, so that he could be elected tribune of the plebs. During his term of office, he pushed through an ambitious legislative program, including a grain dole; but he is chiefly remembered for his long-running feuds with political opponents, particularly Cicero, whose writings offer antagonistic, detailed accounts and allegations concerning Clodius' political activities and scandalous lifestyle. Clodius was tried for the capital offence of sacrilege, following his intrusion on the women-only rites of the goddess Bona Dea, purportedly with the intention of seducing Caesar's wife Pompeia; his feud with Cicero led to Cicero's temporary exile; his feud with Milo ended in his own death at the hands of Milo's bodyguards.

Praenomen

Praenomen

The praenomen was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the dies lustricus, the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birth of a boy. The praenomen would then be formally conferred a second time when girls married, or when boys assumed the toga virilis upon reaching manhood. Although it was the oldest of the tria nomina commonly used in Roman naming conventions, by the late republic, most praenomina were so common that most people were called by their praenomina only by family or close friends. For this reason, although they continued to be used, praenomina gradually disappeared from public records during imperial times. Although both men and women received praenomina, women's praenomina were frequently ignored, and they were gradually abandoned by many Roman families, though they continued to be used in some families and in the countryside.

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus was a politician of the Roman Republic. He was a conservative and upholder of the established social order who served in several magisterial positions alongside Julius Caesar and conceived a lifelong enmity towards him. In 59 BC he was consul alongside Julius Caesar. Their partnership was contentious to the extent that Caesar arranged for Bibulus to be doused in feces in Rome's main forum on the eve of an important vote. Bibulus withdrew from public politics for the rest of his term.

Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 54 BC)

Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 54 BC)

Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman patrician, politician and general in the first century BC. He was consul of the Roman Republic in 54 BC. He was an expert in Roman law and antiquities, especially the esoteric lore of the augural college of which he was a controversial member. He was head of the senior line of the most powerful family of the patrician Claudii. The Claudii were one of the five leading families which had dominated Roman social and political life from the earliest years of the republic. He is best known as the recipient of 13 of the extant letters in Cicero's ad Familiares corpus, which date from winter 53/52 to summer 50 BC. Regrettably they do not include any of Appius' replies to Cicero. He is also well known for being the older brother of the infamous Clodius and Clodia.

Sallust's monographs of the Catiline conspiracy (De coniuratione Catilinae or Bellum Catilinae) and the Jugurthine War (Bellum Jugurthinum) have come down to us complete, together with fragments of his larger and most important work (Historiae), a history of Rome from 78 to 67 BC.^[39]

His brief monographs – his work on Catiline, for example, is shorter than the shortest of Livy's volumes – were the first books of their form attested at Rome.^[40]

The Conspiracy of Catiline

The monograph on was probably written c. 42 BC.^[25] Some historians, however, give it an earlier date of composition, perhaps as early at 50 BC as an unpublished pamphlet which was reworked and published after the civil wars.^[41] It shows no traces of personal recollections on the conspiracy, perhaps indicating the Sallust was out of the city on military service at the time.^[42] It may have been written as "a plea for common sense" during the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate, with its depiction of Caesar opposing the death penalty contrasting with the then-current slaughter.^[43]

It is Sallust's first published work, detailing the attempt by Lucius Sergius Catilina to overthrow the Roman Republic in 63 BC. Sallust presents Catiline as a deliberate foe of law, order and morality, and does not give a comprehensive explanation of his views and intentions (Catiline had supported the party of Sulla, whom Sallust had opposed). Theodor Mommsen suggested that Sallust particularly wished to clear his patron (Caesar) of all complicity in the conspiracy.

In writing about the conspiracy of Catiline, Sallust's tone, style, and descriptions of aristocratic behaviour illustrate "the political and moral decline of Rome, begun after the fall of Carthage, quickening after Sulla's dictatorship, and spreading from the dissolute nobility to infect all Roman politics".^[25] While he inveighs against Catiline's depraved character and vicious actions, he does not fail to state that the man had many noble traits. In particular, Sallust shows Catiline as deeply courageous in his final battle. He presents a narrative condemning the conspirators without doubt, likely relying Cicero's De consulatu suo (lit. 'On his [Cicero's] consulship') for details of the conspiracy;^[44] his narrative focused, however, on Caesar and Cato the Younger, who are held up as "two examples of virtus ('excellence')" with long speeches describing a debate on the punishment of the conspirators in the last section.^[45][46]

The Jugurthine War

Sallust's Jugurthine War (Latin: bellum jugurthinum) is a monograph on the war against Jugurtha in Numidia from 112 to 106 BC. It was written c. 41–40 BC and again emphasised moral decline.^[47] Sallust likely relied on a general annalistic history of the time, as well as the autobiographies of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Publius Rutilius Rufus, and Sulla.^[47]

Its true value lies in the introduction of Marius and Sulla to the Roman political scene and the beginning of their rivalry. Sallust's time as governor of Africa Nova ought to have let the author develop a solid geographical and ethnographical background to the war; however, this is not evident in the monograph, despite a diversion on the subject, because Sallust's priority in the Jugurthine War, as with the Catiline Conspiracy, is to use history as a vehicle for his judgement on the slow destruction of Roman morality and politics.

Other works

His last work, Histories, covered events from 78 BC; none of it survives except a fragment of book 5, concerning the year 67 BC.^[47] From the extant fragments, he seemed to again emphasis moral decline after Sulla; he "was not generous to Pompey".^[47] Historians regret the loss of the work, as it must have thrown much light on a very eventful period, embracing the war against Sertorius (died 72 BC), the campaigns of Lucullus against Mithradates VI of Pontus (75-66 BC), and the victories of Pompey in the East (66–62 BC).

Two letters (Duae epistolae de republica ordinanda), letters of political counsel and advice addressed to Caesar, and an attack upon Cicero (Invectiva or Declamatio in Ciceronem), frequently attributed to Sallust, are thought by modern scholars to have come from the pen of a rhetorician of the first century AD, along with a counter-invective attributed to Cicero. At one time Marcus Porcius Latro was considered a candidate for the authorship of the pseudo-Sallustian corpus, but this view is no longer commonly held.^[48]

Discover more about Works related topics

Catiline

Catiline

Lucius Sergius Catilina, known in English as Catiline, was a Roman politician and soldier. He is best known for instigating the Catilinarian conspiracy, a failed attempt to violently seize control of the Roman state in 63 BC.

Jugurthine War

Jugurthine War

The Jugurthine War was an armed conflict between the Roman Republic and king Jugurtha of Numidia, a kingdom on the north African coast approximating to modern Algeria. Jugurtha was the nephew and adopted son of Micipsa, king of Numidia, whom he succeeded on the throne, overcoming his rivals through assassination, war, and bribery.

Second Triumvirate

Second Triumvirate

The Second Triumvirate was an extraordinary commission and magistracy created for Mark Antony, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Octavian to give them practically absolute power. It was formally constituted by law on 27 November 43 BC with a term of five years; it was renewed in 37 BC for another five years before expiring in 32 BC. Constituted by the lex Titia, the triumvirs were given broad powers to make or repeal legislation, issue judicial punishments without due process or right of appeal, and appoint all other magistrates. The triumvirs also split the Roman world into three sets of provinces.

Patronage in ancient Rome

Patronage in ancient Rome

Patronage (clientela) was the distinctive relationship in ancient Roman society between the patronus ("patron") and their cliens ("client"). The relationship was hierarchical, but obligations were mutual. The patron was the protector, sponsor, and benefactor of the client; the technical term for this protection was patrocinium. Although typically the client was of inferior social class, a patron and client might even hold the same social rank, but the former would possess greater wealth, power, or prestige that enabled him to help or do favors for the client. From the emperor at the top to the commoner at the bottom, the bonds between these groups found formal expression in legal definition of patrons' responsibilities to clients. Patronage relationship were not exclusively between two people and also existed between a general and his soldiers, a founder and colonists, and a conqueror and a dependent foreign community.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Cato the Younger

Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato "Uticensis", also known as Cato the Younger, was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. His conservative principles were focused on the preservation of what he saw as old Roman values in decline. A noted orator and a follower of Stoicism, his scrupulous honesty and professed respect for tradition gave him a powerful political following which he mobilised against powerful generals of his day.

Jugurtha

Jugurtha

Jugurtha or Jugurthen was a king of Numidia. When the Numidian king Micipsa, who had adopted Jugurtha, died in 118 BC, Jugurtha and his two adoptive brothers, Hiempsal and Adherbal, succeeded him. Jugurtha arranged to have Hiempsal killed and, after a civil war, defeated and killed Adherbal in 112 BC.

Numidia

Numidia

Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia, Libya, and some parts of Morocco. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii in the east and the Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War, Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into one kingdom. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state.

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115 BC)

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115 BC)

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was a Roman statesman who served as consul in 115 BC. He was also a long-standing princeps senatus, occupying the post from 115 until his death in late 89 or early 88 BC, and as such was widely considered one of the most prestigious and influential politicians of the late Republic.

Publius Rutilius Rufus

Publius Rutilius Rufus

Publius Rutilius Rufus was a Roman statesman, soldier, orator and historian of the Rutilia gens, as well as a great-uncle of Gaius Julius Caesar. He achieved the highest political office in the Roman Republic when he was elected consul in 105 BC.

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times. He was also noted for his important reforms of Roman armies. He set the precedent for the shift from the militia levies of the middle Republic to the professional soldiery of the late Republic; he also improved the pilum, a javelin, and made large-scale changes to the logistical structure of the Roman army.

Epistula Mithridatis

Epistula Mithridatis

The Epistula Mithridatis, also known as the Letter of Mithridates to King Arsaces, is a letter allegedly written by Mithridates VI of Pontus to the Parthian king Phraates III. The letter was discovered "among a collection of Sallustian speeches and letters probably originally produced in the first or second centuries A.D". In the letter, Mithridates requests Parthian aid against the troops of Lucullus, and in a series of arguments, Mithridates asks the Parthians to join an alliance with Mithridates and Tigranes, against the Romans. The letter, assigned to Sallust, is considered to be an important source on the Pontic–Parthian relations at the time.

The core theme of his work was decline, though his treatment of Roman politics was "often crude", with a historical philosophy influenced by Thucydides.^[49] In this, he felt a "pervasive pessimism" with decline that was "both dreadful and inevitable", a consequence of political and moral corruption itself caused by Rome's immense power:^[46] he traced the civil war to the influx of wealth from conquest and the absence of serious foreign threats to hone and exercise Roman virtue at arms.^[50] For Sallust, the defining moments of the late republic were the destruction of Rome's old foe, Carthage, in 146 BC and the influx of wealth from the east after Sulla's First Mithridatic War.^[51] At the same time, however, he conveyed a "starry-eyed and romantic picture" of the republic before 146 BC, with this period described in terms of "implausibly untrammelled virtue" that romanticised the distant past.^[52]

The style of works written by Sallust was well known in Rome. It differs from the writings of his contemporaries — Caesar and especially Cicero. It is characterized by brevity and by the use of rare words and turns of phrase. As a result, his works are very far from the conversational Latin of his time.^[53]

He employed archaic words: according to Suetonius, Lucius Ateius Praetextatus (Philologus) helped Sallust to collect them.^[54] Ronald Syme suggests that Sallust's choice of style and even particular words was influenced by his antipathy to Cicero, his rival, but also one of the trendsetters in Latin literature in the first century BC.^[55] More recent scholars agree, describing Sallust's style as "anti-Ciceronian", eschewing the harmonious structure of Cicero's sentences for short and abrupt descriptions.^[56] "The Conspiracy of Catiline" reflects many features of style that were developed in his later works.^[57]

Sallust avoids common words from public speeches of contemporary Roman political orators, such as honestas, humanitas, consensus.^[58] In several cases he uses rare forms of well-known words: for example, lubido instead of libido, maxumum instead of maximum, the conjunction quo in place of more common ut. He also uses the less common endings -ere instead of common -erunt in the third person plural in the perfect indicative, and -is instead of -es in the accusative plural for third declension (masculine or feminine) adjectives and nouns. Some words used by Sallust (for example, antecapere, portatio, incruentus, incelebratus, incuriosus), are not known in other writings before him. They are believed to be either neologisms or intentional revivals of archaic words.^[59] Sallust also often uses antithesis, alliterations and chiasmus.^[60]

This style itself called for "a 'return to values'" which was "made to recall the austere life of the idealised ancient Roman", with archaisms and abrupt writing contrasted against Cicero's "adornment" as present decadence was contrasted with ancient virtues.^[50]

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Thucydides

Thucydides

Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.

First Mithridatic War

First Mithridatic War

The First Mithridatic War was a war challenging the Roman Republic's expanding empire and rule over the Greek world. In this conflict, the Kingdom of Pontus and many Greek cities rebelling against Roman rule were led by Mithridates VI of Pontus against Rome and the allied Kingdom of Bithynia. The war lasted five years and ended in a Roman victory which forced Mithridates to abandon all of his conquests and return to Pontus. The conflict with Mithridates VI later resumed in two further Mithridatic Wars.

Suetonius

Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly referred to as Suetonius, was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of 12 successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, properly titled De vita Caesarum. Other works by Suetonius concerned the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many have been lost.

Ronald Syme

Ronald Syme

Sir Ronald Syme, was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roman Empire since Edward Gibbon. His great work was The Roman Revolution (1939), a masterly and controversial analysis of Roman political life in the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Perfect (grammar)

Perfect (grammar)

The perfect tense or aspect is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. An example of a perfect construction is I have made dinner. Although this gives information about a prior action, the focus is likely to be on the present consequences of that action. The word perfect in this sense means "completed".

Accusative case

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.

Neologism

Neologism

A neologism is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often driven by changes in culture and technology. In the process of language formation, neologisms are more mature than protologisms. A word whose development stage is between that of the protologism and neologism is a prelogism.

Antithesis

Antithesis

Antithesis is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together for contrasting effect. This is based on the logical phrase or term.

Alliteration

Alliteration

Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers".

Chiasmus

Chiasmus

In rhetoric, chiasmus or, less commonly, chiasm, is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words".

Statue of Sallust in L'Aquila

As a historian

On the whole, antiquity looked favourably on Sallust as a historian. Tacitus speaks highly of him.^[61] Quintilian called him the "Roman Thucydides".^[40] Martial joins the praise: "Sallust, according to the judgment of the learned, will rank as the prince of Roman historiographers".^[62]

In late antiquity, he was highly praised by Jerome as "very reliable"; his monographs also entered the corpus of standard education in Latin, with Virgil, Cicero, and Terence (covering history, the epic, oratory, and comedy, respectively).^[63]

In the thirteenth century Sallust's passage on the expansion of the Roman Republic (Cat. 7) was cited and interpreted by theologian Thomas Aquinas and scholar Brunetto Latini.^[64] During the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Sallust's works began to influence political thought in Italy. Among many scholars and historians interested in Sallust, the most notable are Leonardo Bruni, Coluccio Salutati and Niccolò Machiavelli.^[65] Among his admirers in England in the early modern period were Thomas More, Alexander Barclay and Thomas Elyot.^[66] Justus Lipsius marked Sallust as the second most notable Roman historian after Tacitus.^[67]

Historians since the 19th century also have negatively noted Sallust's bias and partisanship in his histories, not to mention some errors in geography and dating. Also importantly, much of Sallust's anti-corruption moralising is "blunted by his sanctimonious tone and by ancient accusations of corruption, which have made him out to be a remarkable hypocrite".^[68]

Modern views on the period which Sallust documented reject moral failure as a cause of the republic's collapse and believe that "social conflicts are insufficient to account for the political implosion".^[69] The core narrative of moral decline prevalent in Sallust's works, is now criticised as crowding out the his own examination of the structural and socio-economic factors that brought about the crisis of the republic while also manipulating historical facts to make them fit his moralistic thesis; he, however, is credited as "a clear-sighted and impartial interpreter of his own age".^[70]

His focus on moralising also misrepresents and over-simplifies the state of Roman politics. For example, Mackay 2009, pp. 84, 89:

Sallust paints a picture that is unsatisfactory in a number of ways. He has great interest in moralising, and for this reason, he tends to paint an exaggerated picture of the senate's faults... he analyses events in terms of a simplistic opposition between the self-interest of Roman politicians and the "public good" that shows little understanding of how the Roman political system actually functioned...^[71] The reality was more complicated than Sallust's simplistic moralising would suggest.^[72]

Stylistically

Quotations and commentaries "attest to the high status of Sallust's work in the first and second centuries CE".^[73] Among those who borrowed information from his works were Silius Italicus, Lucan, Plutarch, and Ammianus Marcellinus.^[74][75] Fronto used ancient words collected by Sallust to provide "archaic coloring" for his works.^[76] In the second century AD, Zenobius translated his works into Ancient Greek.^[74]

Other opinions were also present. For example, Gaius Asinius Pollio criticized Sallust's addiction to archaic words and his unusual grammatical features.^[77] Aulus Gellius saved Pollio's unfavorable statement about Sallust's style via quote. According to him, Sallust once used the word transgressus meaning generally "passage [by foot]" for a platoon which crossed the sea (the usual word for this type of crossing was transfretatio).^[78] Though Quintilian has a generally favorable opinion of Sallust, he disparages several features of his style:

For though a diffuse irrelevance is tedious, the omission of what is necessary is positively dangerous. We must therefore avoid even the famous terseness of Sallust (though in his case of course it is a merit), and shun all abruptness of speech, since a style which presents no difficulty to a leisurely reader, flies past a hearer and will not stay to be looked at again.^[79]

His works were also extensively quoted in Augustine of Hippo's City of God; the works themselves also show up in manuscripts all over the post-Roman period and circulated in Carolingian libraries.^[73] In the Middle Ages, Sallust's works were often used in schools to teach Latin. His brief style influenced, among others, Widukind of Corvey and Wipo of Burgundy.^[80]

Petrarch also praised Sallust highly, though he primarily appreciated his style and moralization.^[81] During the French Wars of Religion, De coniuratione Catilinae became widely known as a tutorial on disclosing conspiracies.^[82]

Nietzsche credits Sallust in Twilight of the Idols for his epigrammatic style: "My sense of style, for the epigram as a style, was awakened almost instantly when I came into contact with Sallust" and praises him for being "condensed, severe, with as much substance as possible in the background, and with cold but roguish hostility towards all 'beautiful words' and 'beautiful feelings'".^[83]

Henrik Ibsen's first play, written c. 1849, was Catiline based on Sallust's story.^[80]

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Manuscripts of his writings are usually divided into two groups: mutili (mutilated) and integri (whole; undamaged). The classification is based on the existence of the lacuna (gap) between 103.2 and 112.3 of the Jugurthine War. The lacuna exists in the mutili scrolls, while integri manuscripts have the text there. The most ancient scrolls which survive are the Codex Parisinus 16024 and Codex Parisinus 16025, known as "P" and "A" respectively. They were created in the ninth century, and both belong to the mutili group.^[84] Both these scrolls include only Catiline and Jugurtha, while some other mutili manuscripts also include Invective and Cicero's response.^[85] The oldest integri scrolls were created in the eleventh century AD.^[86] The probability that all these scrolls came from one or more ancient manuscripts is debated.^[87]

There is also a unique scroll Codex Vaticanus 3864, known as "V". It includes only speeches and letters from Catiline, Jugurtha and Histories.^[84] The creator of this manuscript changed the original word order and replaced archaisms with more familiar words.^[84] The "V" scroll also includes two anonymous letters to Caesar probably from Sallust,^[84] but their authenticity is debated.

Several fragments of Sallust's works survived in papyri of the second to fourth centuries AD. Many ancient authors cited Sallust, and sometimes their citations of Histories are the only source for reconstruction of this work. But the significance of these citations for the reconstruction is uncertain; because occasionally the authors cited Sallust from memory, some distortions were possible.^[88]

• Sallust (1931) [Translation first published 1921]. Sallust. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Rolfe, John C (Revised ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-99128-1.
• Sallust (2008). Catiline's War, The Jugurthine War, Histories. Translated by Woodman, AJ. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-140-44948-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ignored ISBN errors (link)
• Sallust (2010). Catiline's conspiracy, the Jugurthine War, Histories. Translated by Batstone, William Wendell. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-161252-7. OCLC 759007075.