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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SAC-SAR |
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SALLUST [Gams SALLUSTIUS CRlspus] (8634 B.c.) , Roman historian, belonging to a well-known plebeian family, was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines. After an ill-spent youth he entered public life, and was elected tribune of the people in 52, the year in which Clodius was killed in a street brawl by the followers of Milo. Sallust was opposed to Milo and to Pompey's party and to the old aristocracy of Rome. From the first he was a decided partisan of Caesar, to whom he owed such political advancement as he attained. In 50 he was removed from the senate by the censor Appius Claudius
governor of the province of Numidia. In this capacity he was guilty of such oppression and extortion that only the influence of Caesar enabled him to escape condemnation. On his return to Rome he purchased and laid out in great
Catiline conspiracy (De conjuration Catilinae or Bellum Catilinarium) and of the Jugurthine War (Bellum Jugurthinum) have come down to us complete, together with fragments of his larger and most important work
work
Catiline Conspiracy (his first published work) contains the history of the memorable year 63. Sallust adopts the usually accepted view of Catiline, and describes him as the deliberate foe of law, order and morality, without attempting to give any adequate explanation of his views and intentions. Catiline, it must be remembered, had supported the party of Sulla, to which Sallust was opposed. There may be truth in Mommsen's suggestion that he was particularly anxious to clear his patron Caesar of all complicity in the conspiracy. Anyhow, the subject gave him the opportunity of showing off his rhetoric at the expense of the old koman aristocracy, whose degeneracy he delighted to paint in the blackest colours. On the whole, he is not unfair towards Cicero. His Jugurthine War, again, though a valuable and interesting monograph, is not a satisfactory performance. We may assume that he had collected materials and put together notes for it during his governor -ship of Numidia. Here, too, he dwells upon the feebleness of the senate and aristocracyw'too often in a tiresome, moralizing and philosophizing vein, but as a military history the wcrk is unsatisfactory in the matter of geographical and chronological details. The extant fragments of the Histories (some discovered in 1886) are enough to show the political partisan, who took a keen pleasure in describing the reaction against the dictator's policy and legislation after his death. The loss of the work is to be regretted, as it must have thrown much light on a very eventful period, embracing the war against Sertorius, the campaigns of Lucullus against Mithradates of Pontus, and the victories of the great
East
and the high moral tone adopted by him in his writings was frequently made a subject of reproach against him; but there is no reason why he should not have reformed. In any case, his knowledge of his own former weaknesses may have led him to take a pessimistic view of the morality of his fellow-men, and to judge them severely. Ilis model was Thucydides, whom he imitated in his truthfulness and impartiality, in the introduction of philosophizing reflections and speeches, and in the brevity of his style, sometimes bordering upon obscurity. His fondness for old words and phrases, in which he imitated his contemporary Cato, was ridiculed as an affectation; but it was just this affectation and his rhetorical exaggerations that made Sallust a favourite author in the 2nd century A.D. and later. Editions and translations in various languages are numerous. Editio prineeps (1470); (text) R. Dietsch (1874); H. Jordan (1887); A. Eussner (1887); (text and notes) F. D. Gerlach (1823-'831); F. Kritz (18281853; ed. minor , 1856) ; C. H. Frotscher (183o); C. Merivale (1852); F. Jacobs, H. Wirz (1894); G. Long, revised by J. G. Frazer, with chief
special
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