Sallust

Sallust (born c. 86 bc, Amiternum, Samnium [now San Vittorino, near L’Aquila, Italy]—died 35/34 bc) was a Roman historian and one of the great Latin literary stylists, noted for his narrative writings dealing with political personalities, corruption, and party rivalry.

Sallust’s family was Sabine and probably belonged to the local aristocracy, but he was the only member known to have served in the Roman Senate. Thus, he embarked on a political career as a novus homo (“new man”); that is, he was not born into the ruling class, which was an accident that influenced both the content and tone of his historical judgments. Nothing is known of his early career, but he probably gained some military experience, perhaps in the east in the years from 70 to 60 bc. His first political office, which he held in 52, was that of a tribune of the plebs. The office, originally designed to represent the lower classes, by Sallust’s time had developed into one of the most powerful magistracies. The evidence that Sallust held a quaestorship, an administrative office in finance, sometimes dated about 55, is unreliable.

Because of electoral disturbances in 53, there were no regular government officials other than the tribunes, and the next year opened in violence that led to the murder of Clodius Pulcher, a notorious demagogue and candidate for the praetorship (a magistracy ranking below that of consul), by a gang led by Titus Annius Milo. The latter was a candidate for consul. In the trial that followed, Cicero defended Milo, while Sallust and his fellow tribunes harangued the people in speeches attacking Cicero. While these events were not of lasting significance, Sallust’s experience of the political strife of that year provided a major theme for his writings.

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In 50 Sallust was expelled from the Senate. The anonymous “Invective Against Sallust” alleges immorality as the cause, but the real reason may have been politics. In 49 Sallust sought refuge with Julius Caesar, and, when the civil war between Caesar and Pompey broke out in that year, he was placed in command of one of Caesar’s legions. His only recorded action was unsuccessful. Two years later, designated praetor, he was sent to quell a mutiny among Caesar’s troops, again without success. In 46 he took part in Caesar’s African campaign (with modest success), and, when Africa Nova was formed from Numidian territory (modern Algeria), Sallust became its first governor. He remained in office until 45 or early 44.

Upon returning to Rome, Sallust was accused of extortion and of plundering his province, but through Caesar’s intervention he was never brought to trial according to the “Invective Against Sallust,” as reported by Dio Cassius. The evidence draws moralizing contrasts between Sallust’s behaviour and his censorious writings and suggests a source for the ill-gotten wealth that created the splendid Sallustian Gardens (Horti Sallustiani). The tradition about his morals seems to have originated in scurrilous gossip and by a confusion between the historian and his adopted son, Augustus’s minister Sallustius Crispus, a man of great wealth and luxurious tastes.

Sallust’s political career ended soon after his return to Rome. His retirement may have been voluntary, as he himself maintains, or forced upon him by the withdrawal of Julius Caesar’s favour or even by Caesar’s assassination in 44.

Sallust may have begun to write even before the Triumvirate was formed late in 43. Sallust was born in a time of civil war. As he grew to maturity, foreign war and political strife were commonplace; thus, it is not surprising that his writings are preoccupied with violence. His first monograph, Bellum Catilinae (43–42 bc; Catiline’s War), deals with corruption in Roman politics by tracing the conspiracy of Catiline, a ruthlessly ambitious patrician who had attempted to seize power in 63 bc after the suspicions of his fellow nobles and the growing mistrust of the people prevented him from attaining it legally. Catiline was supported by certain members of the upper classes who were prompted either by ambition or by the hope of solving their financial problems by Catiline’s accession to power. But he also had the backing of Italy’s dissatisfied veterans, impoverished peasants, and overburdened debtors. In Sallust’s view, Catiline’s crime and the danger he presented were unprecedented. Indeed, alarmed contemporaries may have exaggerated the significance of the incident; yet, had the government not acted as firmly as it did (effectively declaring martial law), a catastrophe could have occurred. Sallust describes the course of the conspiracy and the measures taken by the Senate and Cicero, who was then consul. He brings his narrative to a climax in a senatorial debate concerning the fate of the conspirators, which took place on Dec. 5, 63. In Sallust’s eyes, not Cicero but Caesar and Cato represented civic virtue and were the significant speakers in the debate; he regarded the deaths of Caesar and Cato as marking the end of an epoch in the history of the republic. A digression in this work indicates that he considered party strife as the principal factor in the republic’s disintegration.

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In Sallust’s second monograph, Bellum Jugurthinum (41–40 bc; The Jugurthine War), he explored in greater detail the origins of party struggles that arose in Rome when war broke out against Jugurtha, the king of Numidia, who rebelled against Rome at the close of the 2nd century bc. This war provided the opportunity for the rise to the consulship of Gaius Marius, who, like Sallust and Cicero, was a “new man.” His accession to power represented a successful attack on the traditionally exclusive Roman political elite, but it caused the kind of political conflict that, in Sallust’s view, resulted in war and ruin. Sallust considered Rome’s initial mismanagement of the war the fault of the “powerful few” who sacrificed the common interest to their own avarice and exclusiveness. Political turmoil in Rome during the late republic had social and economic causes (not overlooked by Sallust), but essentially it took the form of a power struggle between the aristocratic group in control of the Senate and those senators who enlisted popular support to challenge the oligarchy. This is the underlying framework of Sallust’s schematic analysis of the events of that time—the clash between the nobility, or Senate, and the people, or plebeians.

The Histories, of which only fragments remain, describes the history of Rome from 78 to at least 67 bc on a year-to-year basis. Here Sallust deals with a wider range of subject matter, but party conflict and attacks on the politically powerful remain a central concern. Hints of hostility to the Triumvirate on Sallust’s part may be detected in both Bellum Jugurthinum and the Histories. Two “Letters to Caesar” and an “Invective Against Cicero,” Sallustian in style, have often been credited, although probably incorrectly, to Sallust; the former title was attributed to him by the 1st-century-ad Roman educator Quintilian.

Sallust’s influence pervades later Roman historiography, whether men reacted against him, as Livy did, or exploited and refined his manner and views, as Tacitus did. Sallust himself was influenced by Thucydides more than by any other Greek writer. Sallust’s narratives were enlivened with speeches, character sketches, and digressions, and, by skillfully blending archaism and innovation, he created a style of classic status. And to the delight of moralists he revealed that Roman politics were not all that official rhetoric depicted them to be. His monographs excel in suggesting larger themes in the treatment of particular episodes.

Sallust is somewhat limited as a historian; his work shows many instances of anachronisms, inaccuracies, and prejudice; the geography of the Bellum Jugurthinum scarcely reveals personal acquaintance with North Africa; he treats the destruction of Carthage in 146 bc as the beginning of the Roman crisis, whereas symptoms were clearly visible before that date. Nor is he a deep thinker, being content to operate with philosophical commonplaces. He makes no attack on the structure of the Roman state. His moral and political values are traditional; they commemorate the past to castigate the present. But his own experiences in politics imbued his analysis and his idiom with an energy and passion that compel the attention of readers. Sallust’s moralizing and brilliant style made him popular in the Middle Ages, and he was an important influence on the English Classical republicans of the 17th century (who, during a period of revolution and turmoil, advocated for a government modeled on the Roman Republic) and the U.S. Founding Fathers in the 18th century.