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The earliest Roman historian with complete works to his name, Sallust (86-c. 35 BC) was a senator of the Roman Republic and younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar. His Catiline's Wartells of the conspiracy in 63 BD led by L. Sergius Catilina, who plotted to assassinate numerous senators and take control of the government, but was thwarted by Cicero. Sallust's vivid account of Roman public life shows a Republic in decline, prey to moral corruption and internal strife. In The Jugurthine Warhe describes Rome's fight n Africa against the king of the Numidians from 111 to 105 BC, and provides a damning picture of the Roman aristocracy. Also included in this volume are the major surviving extracts from Sallust's now fragmentary Histories, depicting Rome after the death in 78 BC of the dictator Sulla.… (more)
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There are fairly self-evident motivations for the men Sallust presents as incorrigible villains, and we may also compare his view of history to Cicero's; for even though they were of like opinion, Cicero tends to be more equitable in his explanations.
This difference between the two authors rather perfectly encapsulates the difference between them as men, and the central point of their disagreement. Cicero was a pacifier, a placator, but one of enough skill and vigor to change his opponent's course in the midst of deference. We might expect him to be in perfect agreement with Ben Franklin who, when once asked for advice by Thomas Jefferson, is supposed to have said "never disagree with anyone".
Sallust, on the other hand, was an incurable idealist. We are treated to long passages on the particular moral qualities a man ought to have and how Sallust's opponents lack them and how Sallust's friends all have them. There is a constant sense of injustice being perpetrated throughout the politic sphere, but it is always by Sallust's political and ideological enemies.
Though the reader rarely doubts such depravity and greed went on, Sallust's self righteous displays of humble innocence strike as false. His history is not informed enough to serve us--indeed, it is filled with errors in dates, places, and people. But neither is his rhetoric so impressive that it saves his tract from being more than the lamentations of a man who retired to complain for posterity's sake.
As a historical view, he is useful, but moreso within the context of other writers.
Luckily, Sallust really was a pretty good writer. Batstone's translation smooths off the extreme difficulty of Sallust's style, but keeps the pithiness (compare: every other historian before Sallust, all of whom wrote eighteen thousand volume monsters; Tacitus apparently learned from Sallust). The two major histories (I exclude The Histories, since they're in here for completeness and scholarly respectability; I can't imagine too many people reading those fragments with pleasure) each include fascinating philosophical prologues and a wonderful old-man odor of crankiness. The people are always far more interesting in Sallust's depiction than they are in, e.g., Cicero; Catiline seems like a pretty reasonable guy gone wrong, as does Jugurtha. And in general it's nice to read a Roman who doesn't have time for the pretensions of the aristocrats of the senate. The comparison with today casts an interesting light on all the neoclassical buildings that dot America's administrative districts.
Also, this is a very good edition if, like me, you don't know that much about the events Sallust is writing about. Batstone has encouraged me to read more about the late Republic, which is the best thing one can say about an editor/translator.