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Sallust (c. 86-c. 34/5 B.C.). The Reader's Biographical Encyclopaedia. 1922

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Sallust (c. 86-c. 34/5 B.C.). The Reader's Biographical Encyclopaedia. 1922 Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record Hugh Chisholm, et al., eds.  The Reader’s Biographical Encyclopædia.  1922.
17,000 Articles from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th & 12th eds. Sallust (c. 86–c. 34/5 B.C.) [Gaius Sallustius Crispus].  Roman historian, belonging to a well-known plebeian family; 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 Cæsar, to whom he owed such political advancement as he attained. In 50 he was removed from the senate by the censor Appius Claudius Pulcher on the ground of gross immorality, the real reason probably being his friendship for Cæsar. In the following year, no doubt through Cæsar’s influence, he was reinstated and appointed quaestor. In 46 he was praetor, and accompanied Cæsar in his African campaign, which ended in the decisive defeat of the remains of the Pompeian party at Thapsus. As a reward for his services, Sallust was appointed governor of the province of Numidia. In this capacity he was guilty of such oppression and extortion that only the influence of Cæsar enabled him to escape condemnation. On his return to Rome he purchased and laid out in great splendour the famous gardens on the Quirinal known as the Horti Sallustiani. He now retired from public life and devoted himself to historical literature. His account of the Catiline conspiracy (De conjuratione 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 (Historiae), a history of Rome from 78–67, intended as a continuation of L. Cornelius Sisenna’s work. The 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 Cæsar of all complicity in the conspiracy. Anyhow, the subject gave him the opportunity of showing off his rhetoric at the expense of the old Roman 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 governorship of Numidia. Here, too, he dwells upon the feebleness of the senate and aristocracy, too often in a tiresome, moralizing and philosophizing vein, but as a military history the work 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 Pompey in the East. Two letters (Duae epistolae de republica ordinanda), letters of political counsel and advice addressed to Cæsar, and an attack upon Cicero (Invectiva or Declamatio in Ciceronem), frequently attributed to Sallust, are probably the work of a rhetorician of the 1st century A.D., also the author of a counter-invective by Cicero. Sallust is highly spoken of by Tacitus (Annals, iii. 30); and Quintilian (ii. 5, x. 1), who regards him as superior to Livy, does not hesitate to put him on a level with Thucydides. On the whole the verdict of antiquity was favourable to Sallust as an historian. He struck out for himself practically a new line in literature, his predecessors having been little better than mere dry-as-dust chroniclers, whereas he endeavoured to explain the connection and meaning of events, and was a successful delineator of character. The contrast between his early life 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. His 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.

1   Editions and translations in various languages are numerous. Editio princeps (1470); (text) R. Dietsch (1874); H. Jordan (1887); A. Eussner (1887); (text and notes) F. D. Gerlach (1823–1831); F. Kritz (1828–1853; ed. minor, 1856); C. H. Frotscher (1830); C. Merivale (1852); F. Jacobs, H. Wirz (1894); G. Long, revised by J. G. Frazer, with chief fragments of Histories (1884); W. W. Capes (1884); English translation by A. W. Pollard (1882). There are many separate editions of the Catilina and Jugurtha, chiefly for school use. The fragments have been edited by F. Kritz (1853) and B. Maurenbrecher (1891–1893); and there is an Italian translation (with notes) of the supposititious letters by G. Vittori (1897). On Sallust generally J. W. Löbell’s Zur Beurtheilung des S. (1818) should still be consulted; there are also treatises by T. Vogel (1857) and M. Jäger (1879 and 1884), T. Rambeau (1879); L. Constans, De sermone Sallustiano (1880); P. Bellezza, Dei fonti e dell’ autorità storica di Sallustio (1891); and special lexicon by O. Eichert (1885). The sections in Teuffel-Schwabe’s History of Roman Literature are full of information; see also bibliography of Sallust for 1878–1898 by B. Maurenbrecher in C. Bursian, Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (1900).

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