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 the state was exposed," but it has been suspected that he had the underlying motive of clearing Caesar, as well as Gaius Antonius, the uncle of Mark Antony, from the suspicion of complicity in the plot; some have even regarded this as his main purpose. The exact time when the Catiline was written is uncertain, but the language of the eulogy of Caesar indicates that it was not published until after the death of the dictator. Some scholars maintain that it was issued immediately after the assassination, while others assign it to the year 40

Sallust had an abundance of written records on which to base his account, such as decrees of the senate, Cicero's published speeches, and the histories of Cicero's consulship. He could also draw upon his personal recollection of the events and on the testimony of his contemporaries. Yet the monograph is inaccurate in many of its details, in particular in assigning the beginning of the conspiracy to the year 64, instead of to 63, thus prolonging the events of a few months to the duration of more than a year, with inevitable distortion of the facts. The principal aim seems to have been to make the account interesting and vivid, and in that Sallust unquestionably succeeded; from the literary point of view the Catiline must always take a high rank. The character sketches of Sempronia, Cato, and Caesar, with the speeches of the last two, are especially fine.

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