Book 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.
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.
