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Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (; 86 – ), was a
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became during the 50s BC a partisan of
Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), 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, an ...
(100 to 44 BC). He is the earliest known Latin-language Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which ''Conspiracy of Catiline'' (on the eponymous conspiracy), ''The Jugurthine War'' (on the eponymous war), and the ''Histories'' (of which only fragments survive) remain extant. As a writer, Sallust was primarily influenced by the works of the 5th-century BC Greek historian Thucydides. During his political career he amassed great and ill-gotten wealth from his governorship of Africa.


Life and career

Sallust was probably born in Amiternum in Central Italy,.. though Eduard Schwartz takes the view that Sallust's birthplace was Rome. His birth date is calculated from the report of Jerome's '' Chronicon''.. But Ronald Syme suggests that Jerome's date has to be adjusted because of his carelessness, and suggests 87 BC as a more correct date. However, Sallust's birth is widely dated at 86 BC, and the '' Kleine Pauly Encyclopedia'' takes 1 October 86 BC as the birthdate.Schmidt, P. L. "Sallustius (4)", ''Der Kleine Pauly''. Bd. IV. Sp. 1513 Michael Grant cautiously offers 80s BC. There is no information about Sallust's parents or family,. except for Tacitus' mention of his sister. The ''Sallustii'' were a provincial noble family of Sabine origin.. They belonged to the equestrian order and had full Roman citizenship. During the Social War Sallust's parents hid in Rome, because Amiternum was under threat of siege by rebelling Italic tribes.. Because of this Sallust could have been raised in Rome. He received a very good education.


Early career

After an ill-spent youth, Sallust entered public life and may have won election as quaestor in 55 BC. However, the evidence is unclear; some scholars suggest he never held the post. 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. He also organised "ferocious street demonstrations" to exert public pressure on Cicero, intimidating him into "giving a substandard performance", 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. Syme suggests that Sallust, because of his position in Milo's trial, did not originally support Caesar.. According to one inscription, some Sallustius (with unclear praenomen) was a proquaestor in Syria in 50 BC under Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. 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''. Sallust's political affiliation is unclear in this early period, but after he was expelled from the senate in 50 BC by Appius Claudius Pulcher (then serving as censor), he joined Caesar. He was removed on grounds of immorality, but this was likely a pretext for his opposition to Milo during his tribunate.


Caesar's civil war

During the
civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
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 ''Commentarii de Bello Civili'' ''(Commentaries on the Civil War)'', or ''Bellum Civile'', is an account written by Julius Caesar of his war against Gnaeus Pompeius and the Roman Senate. It consists of three books covering the events of 49� ...
''.. Plutarch reported that Sallust dined with Caesar, Hirtius,
Oppius The Oppian Hill (Latin, ''Oppius Mons''; it, Colle Oppio) is the southern spur of the Esquiline Hill, one of the Seven hills of Rome, Italy. It is separated from the Cispius on the north by the valley of the Suburra, and from the Caelian Hill ...
, Balbus and Sulpicius Rufus on the night after Caesar's crossing the Rubicon into Italy in early January. 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. This campaign was unsuccessful. In 48 BC, he was probably made quaestor by Caesar, automatically restoring his seat in the senate. 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, with several other senators, was sent to persuade the soldiers to abstain, but the rebels killed two senators, and Sallust narrowly escaped death. In 46 BC, he served as a praetor 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. 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.. As governor he was so corrupt and avaricious that –on his return in late 45 or early 44 BC – only Caesar's dictatorial influence enabled him to escape conviction on charges of corruption and extortion. 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 ( la, horti sallustiani), which were later inherited by the emperors.


Retirement

Due to those charges and without prospects for advancement, he devoted himself to writing history, presenting his historical writings as an extension of public life to record achievements for future generations. His political life influenced his histories, which produced in him a "deep bitterness toward the elite", with "few heroes in his surviving writings". 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 Terentia (; 98 BC – AD 6) was the wife of the renowned orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. She was instrumental in Cicero's political life both as a benefactor and as a fervent activist for his cause. Family background Terentia was born into a wea ...
. However, prominent scholars of Roman prosopography such as Ronald Syme believe this is a legend. According to Procopius, when Alaric's invading army entered Rome they burned Sallust's house.


Works

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. 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.


''The Conspiracy of Catiline''

The monograph on was probably written . 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. 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. 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. It is Sallust's first published work, detailing the attempt by
Lucius Sergius Catilina Lucius Sergius Catilina ( 108 BC – January 62 BC), 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 R ...
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". 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'' () for details of the conspiracy; 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.


''The Jugurthine War''

Sallust's ''Jugurthine War'' ( la, bellum jugurthinum) is a monograph on the war against Jugurtha in Numidia from 112 to 106 BC. It was written and again emphasised moral decline. 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. 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. From the extant fragments, he seemed to again emphasis moral decline after Sulla; he "was not generous to Pompey". Historians regret the loss of the work, as it must have thrown much light on a very eventful period, embracing the war against
Sertorius Quintus Sertorius (c. 126 – 73 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who led a large-scale rebellion against the Roman Senate on the Iberian peninsula. He had been a prominent member of the populist faction of Cinna and Marius. During the ...
(died 72 BC), the campaigns of
Lucullus Lucius Licinius Lucullus (; 118–57/56 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingd ...
against
Mithradates VI of Pontus Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator ( grc-gre, Μιθραδάτης; 135–63 BC) was ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He was a ...
(75-66 BC), and the victories of
Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of ...
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.


Style and themes

The core theme of his work was decline, though his treatment of Roman politics was "often crude", with a historical philosophy influenced by Thucydides. 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: 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. 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 The First Mithridatic War (89–85 BC) 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 Mithridat ...
. 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. 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. He employed archaic words: according to Suetonius, Lucius Ateius Praetextatus (Philologus) helped Sallust to collect them. 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. More recent scholars agree, describing Sallust's style as "anti-Ciceronian", eschewing the harmonious structure of Cicero's sentences for short and abrupt descriptions. "The Conspiracy of Catiline" reflects many features of style that were developed in his later works. Sallust avoids common words from public speeches of contemporary Roman political orators, such as ''honestas'', ''humanitas'', ''consensus''. 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 The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
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
neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
s or intentional revivals of archaic words. Sallust also often uses antithesis,
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". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...
s and chiasmus. 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.


Reception


As a historian

On the whole, antiquity looked favourably on Sallust as a historian. Tacitus speaks highly of him. Quintilian called him the "Roman Thucydides". Martial joins the praise: "Sallust, according to the judgment of the learned, will rank as the prince of Roman historiographers". 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 Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
,
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
, and
Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought ...
(covering history, the epic, oratory, and comedy, respectively). In the thirteenth century Sallust's passage on the expansion of the Roman Republic (Cat. 7) was cited and interpreted by theologian
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Order, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino, Italy, Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest who was an influential List of Catholic philo ...
and scholar Brunetto Latini. 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 Coluccio Salutati (16 February 1331 – 4 May 1406) was an Italian humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence; as chancellor of the Republic and its most prominent voice, he was effec ...
and
Niccolò Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...
. Among his admirers in England in the early modern period were Thomas More, Alexander Barclay and Thomas Elyot. Justus Lipsius marked Sallust as the second most notable Roman historian after Tacitus. 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". 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". 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". His focus on moralising also misrepresents and over-simplifies the state of Roman politics. For example, :


Stylistically

Quotations and commentaries "attest to the high status of Sallust's work in the first and second centuries CE". Among those who borrowed information from his works were Silius Italicus, Lucan, Plutarch, and
Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the ''Res Gestae ...
. Альбрехт, М. (2002) ''История римской литературы'', Т. 1. Греко-латинский кабинет. С. 504 Fronto used ancient words collected by Sallust to provide "archaic coloring" for his works. In the second century AD, Zenobius translated his works into Ancient Greek. Other opinions were also present. For example,
Gaius Asinius Pollio Gaius Asinius Pollio (75 BC – AD 4) was a Roman soldier, politician, orator, poet, playwright, literary critic, and historian, whose lost contemporary history provided much of the material used by the historians Appian and Plutarch. Poll ...
criticized Sallust's addiction to archaic words and his unusual grammatical features.Suetonius, ''On Famous Grammarians and Rhetoricians'' 10 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 y foot for a platoon which crossed the sea (the usual word for this type of crossing was ''transfretatio''). Though Quintilian has a generally favorable opinion of Sallust, he disparages several features of his style: 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. 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. Альбрехт, М. (2002) ''История римской литературы'', Т. 1. Греко-латинский кабинет. С. 505 Petrarch also praised Sallust highly, though he primarily appreciated his style and moralization. During the
French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mil ...
, ''De coniuratione Catilinae'' became widely known as a tutorial on disclosing conspiracies. 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'". Henrik Ibsen's first play, written , was '' Catiline'' based on Sallust's story.


Manuscripts

Several manuscripts of his works survived due to his popularity in antiquity and the Middle Ages. 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. Both these scrolls include only ''Catiline'' and ''Jugurtha'', while some other ''mutili'' manuscripts also include ''Invective'' and Cicero's response. The oldest ''integri'' scrolls were created in the eleventh century AD. The probability that all these scrolls came from one or more ancient manuscripts is debated. Альбрехт, М. (2002) ''История римской литературы'', Т. 1. Греко-латинский кабинет. С. 502 There is also a unique scroll ''Codex Vaticanus 3864'', known as "V". It includes only speeches and letters from ''Catiline'', ''Jugurtha'' and ''Histories''. The creator of this manuscript changed the original word order and replaced archaisms with more familiar words. The "V" scroll also includes two anonymous letters to Caesar probably from Sallust, 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.


Translations

* * *


See also

*
List of historians This is a list of historians only for those with a biographical entry in Wikipedia. Major chroniclers and annalists are included. Names are listed by the person's historical period. The entries continue with the specializations, not nationality. A ...
* Roman historiography * Unity makes strength * ''
Animus in consulendo liber ''Animus in consulendo liber'' (Latin: "A mind unfettered in deliberation") is the motto of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The phrase is from '' The Conspiracy of Catiline'' (52.21) by the Roman historian Sallust, and was translat ...
''


References

Citations Sources * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * * * *


External links

;Latin with English translation
at LacusCurtius
(J. C. Rolfe, 1921): ** ''Bellum Catilinae'' ** ''Bellum Jugurthinum'' ** ''Invectiva in Ciceronem'' (uncertain authorship, sometimes attributed to Sallust) ** ''Oratio ad Caesarem'' (uncertain authorship) * (Schmitz and Zumpt, 1848): ** ''Bellum Catilinae'' ** ''Bellum Jugurthinum'' * at the Perseus Project (Watson, 1899): **
Bellum Catilinae
' **
Bellum Jugurthinum
'

** ''Fragmenta Historiarum'' (translation of selected fragments) ** ''Fragmenta Historiarum''

of all surviving fragments) ;Latin only

(unknown edition): ** ''Bellum Catilinae'' ** ''Bellum Jugurthinum'' ** ''Fragmenta Historiarum'' ** ''Epistolae ad Caesarem'' ** ''Invectiva in Ciceronem'' * ;English only * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sallust 86 BC births 30s BC deaths Year of birth uncertain 1st-century BC historians 1st-century BC Romans Ancient Roman soldiers Golden Age Latin writers Latin historians Sallustii