Product Description

Sallust (86–c. 35 bc) is the earliest Roman historian of whom complete works survive, a senator of the Roman Republic and younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar. His Catiline’s War tells of the conspiracy in 63 bc 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 War he describes Rome’s fight in 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 of the dictator Sulla.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86770 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-06
• Original language: Latin
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Publisher
A. J. Woodman's translation retains the individualism of the original Latin, while his introduction discusses Sallust's life and political career and his approach to writing history. This edition includes chronologies, further reading, an index and extensive notes.

About the Author
Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus), (86-34 BC), was a Roman historian. His principal works are the Bellum Catilinae, on the conspiracy of Catiline and his account of the Jugurthine War, Bellum Jugurthinum. A. J. Woodman is Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. He has co-authored commentaries on Tacitus’ Annals, and a monograph Latin Historians. Most recently he has produced Tacitus Reviewed, co-edited Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace, and published an award-winning translation of Tacitus’ Annals.

Customer Reviews

Classic analysis of Roman decadence
Sallust wrote his `history' of the `conspiracy' of Catilina between c.44 and c.35 BCE, 20 to 30 years after the events and he probably relied on Cicero's published speeches against Catilina. But whereas Cicero wanted to portray himself in the heroic role of the consul who foiled the conspiracy, Sallust was more interested reflecting on the past and present and applying the lessons from one to the other.

Here he is particularly interested in the concept of decadence, the anti-Roman values of Catilina's time which, in numerous Roman narratives, leads to the fall from past Roman austerity and virtue to present moral decline.

As well as being of intrinsic interest in itself, Sallust's prose is far more literary than Cicero's oral speeches. Ben Johnson used Sallust as the basis for his play Catiline (1611) and it might also have influenced Shakespeare's Roman plays: Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony & Cleopatra (though he also relied on Livy and Plutarch). Well worth reading and the Latin's not too difficult.