Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/708

Rh G96 SALLUSTIUS. what kind of death he would die. Sallustius was suspected of holding somewhat impious opinions regarding the gods. He seems at least to have been unsparing in his attacks upon the fanatical theology of the Neo-PJatonists. The treatise Uepl ^ewv Koi Koa/jLov has sometimes, without sufficient reason, been attributed to this Sallustius. (Suidas, I. c. ; Phot. /. c. ,• Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. vol. ii. p. 528, &c.) [C. P. M.] C. SALLU'STIUS CRTSPUS, or SALU'S- TIUS, belonged to a plebeian fiimily, and was born B. c. 8G, the year in which C. Marius died, at Aniitenium, in the country of the Sabini. About the age of twenty- seven, as some say, though the time is uncertain, he ob- tained the quaestorship, and in b. c. 52 he was elected tribunus plebis, in the year in which Clodius was killed by Milo in a brawl. In B. c. 50 the censors Appius Claudius Pulcher and L. Calpumius Piso ejected Sallustius from the senate (Dion Cass. xl. 63, and the note of Reimarus), on the ground, as some say, of his having been caught in the act of adultery with Fausta, the daughter of the dictator Sulla, and the wife of T. Annius Milo. It is said that the husband soundly whipped Sallustius, and only let him off on payment of a sum of money (Varro, quoted by Gellius, xvii. 18). Sallustius belonged to the faction of Caesar, and party spirit may have had some effect with the censors, for the im- putation of an adulterous commerce, even if true, would hardly have been a sufficient ground at that time for a Nota Censoria. Sallustius, in his tri- bunate, made a violent attack upon Milo as to the affair of Clodius, but there may have been other grounds for his enmity, besides the supposed thrashing that he had received from Milo. The adulterous act, of course, was committed before B. c. 52 ; and Sallustius was elected a tribune after the affair. However this may be, upon his ejection from the senate, we hear no more of him for some time. The unknown author of the Declamatio in Sallustium (c. 5, 6) merely hints that he may have gone to Caesar, who was then in Gallia ; but such a hint from an unknown person is worth nothing. In B. c. 47 Sallustius was praetor elect, and was thus restored to his rank. (Dion. Cass. xlii. <52.) He nearly lost his life in a mutiny of some of Caesar's troops in Campania, who had been led thither to pass over into Africa. (Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. 92.) Sallustius carried the news of the uproar to Caesar at Rome, and was followed thither by the mutinous soldiers, whom Caesar pacified. Sallustius accompanied Caesar in his African war, B. c. 46 {Bell. Afric. c. 8, 34), and he was sent to the island Cercina (the Karkenna islands, on the coast of Tunis), to get supplies for Caesar, which he accomplished. Caesar left him in Africa as the governor of Numidia, in which capacity he is charged with having oppressed the people, and enriched himself by unjust means (Dion Cass, xliii. 9, and the note of Reimarus.) He was accused of maladministration before Caesar, but it does not appear that he was brought to trial. The charge is somewhat con- firmed by the fact of his becoming immensely rich, as was shown by the expensive gardens which he formed (horti Sallustiani) on the Quirinalis. It is conjectured that the abusive attack of Lenaeus, a freedman of Pompeius Magnus, is the authority SALLUSTIUS. for the scandalous tales against Sallustius (Sue- ton. De Illust. Grammat 15); but it is not the only authority. Sallustius retired into privacy after he returned from Africa, and he passed quietly through the troublesome period after Caesar's death. He died B. c. 34, about four years before the battle of Actium. The story of his marrying Cicero's wife, Terentia, is improbable. (Druinann, Geschichte Roms., vol. vi. p. 693.) The character of Sallustius has been the subject of much discussion among scholars, some of whom attempt to clear him of the scandalous imputations upon his memory. That a partizan, like Sallustius, and a rich man too, must have had many enemies, is agreeable to all experience ; and of course he may have had detractors. But to attempt to decide on the real merits of his character, or the degree of his demerits, with such evidence as we have, is puerile industry. It is enough to remark that Dion Cassius ahyays makes a man as bad as he can. That he devoted himself so busily to literature in his retirement is an argument in favour of the latter part of his life at least. It was probably not till after his return from Africa that Sallustius wrote his historical works. The Catilina, or Bellum Catilinarium^ is a history of the conspiracy of Catilina during the consulship of Cicero, b. c. 63. The introduction to this history, which some critics admire, is only a feeble and rhetorical attempt to act the philosopher and moralist. The history, however, is valuable ; and the charge that the historian has underrated the services of Cicero, is not maintainable. He would have damaged Cicero more in the opinion of the admirers of Cicero, at least, by not writing the history at all. Sallustius was a living spectator of the events which he describes, and considering that he was not a friend of Cicero, and was a partizan of Caesar, he wrote with fairness. The speeches which he has inserted in his history are certainly his own composition ; but we may as- sume that Caesar's speech was extant, and that he gave the substance of it. If he wrote the history after Caesar's death, which is probable, that may explain why he had the bad taste to put his own composition in the place of Caesar's genuine oration. Cato's speech on the same occasion was taken down by short-hand writers (Plut. Cato Minor., c. 23) ; and Sallustius of course had it in his hands ; but still he wrote one himself (Dru- mann, Geschichte Roms, vol. iii. p. 1 74). He showed his ignorance of the true value of history, and his vanity too in not recording a speech of Cato. Constantius Felicius Durantinus, in his Historia Conjurationis Catilinariae, has stated the facts which Sallustius either purposely or carelessly omitted in his history. The Jugurtha, or Bellum .Jugurlhinum, contains the history of the war of the Romans against Ju- gurtha, king of Numidia, which began B.C. Ill, and continued until b. c. 106. It is likely enough that Sallustius was led to write this work from having resided in Africa, and that he collected some materials there. He cites the Punic Books of King Hiempsal, as authority for his general geographical description {Jug. c. 17). The Ju- gurthine war has a philosophical introduction of the same stamp as that to the Catilina. As a history of the campaign, the Jugurthine war is of no value : there is a total neglect of geographical precision, and apparently not a very strict regard