C' Sallustius Crispus c' 86 35 BCE

1
C. Sallustius Crispus c. 86 35 BCE
2
Sallust

• Background A Roman from the senatorial elite
  started out on public career (cursus honorum) as
  appropriate for a young Roman from this class
• quaestor in 55 BCE tribune (a plebeian office)
  in 52 BCE removed from senate in 50 BCE
• Praetor in 49 under Julius Caesar - back in
  senate campaigns in Illyricum and Africa
  governor of Africa Nova

3
Sallusts Works

• Two monographs
• The Jugurthan War ( Bellum Iugurthinum) on the
  struggle with the Numidian king Jugurtha 112-106
• The Catilinarian Conspiracy (Bellum Catilinae)

4
Purpose and Audience

• The Catilinarian Conspiracy - because he
  considered it a particularly dangerous event see
  Ch. 4
• The monograph promotes the populares cause and
  Caesar for this purpose he often distorts facts
  and the chronology
• shows his political bias, openly opposes the
  optimates admires Caesar
• Similarly, in Jugurthan War Marius the novus
  homo is the hero, and his cause is promoted

5
Sallusts contribution to Roman historiography

• Abandons annalistic method
• Raised the literary value of history
• History has to be more than narrative , it must
  observe tendencies, and it must explain. He
  interprets political intrigues

6
Sallusts style and method

• Used as model Thucydides Peloponnesian War ,
• Followed Thucydides political and psychological
  themes but adapted them to Roman context
• Reflected especially in his analysis of peoples
  motives justifies political motivation of others
  
• Thucydides ideas of the course of history
  involved chance and human nature
• Sallust dismissed chance in analysis of
  causation
• Sallust and other Roman historians analyzed
  course of history in terms of social and economic
  causes. Examples Sallust, Catiline Chs. 38 39
• No Roman historian was able to follow Thucydides
  in his depth of analysis of political causation