Sallust

Sallust

full name Gaius Sallustius Crispus. 86--?34 bc, Roman historian and statesman, noted for his histories of the Catiline conspiracy and the Roman war against Jugurtha

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Sallust

 

(Gaius Sallustius Crispus). Born 86 B.C.; died circa 35 B.C. Roman historian.

In the civil wars of 49–45 B.C., Sallust sided with Julius Caesar; he subsequently became proconsul of the Roman province of Africa Nova. After Caesar’s death in 44 B.C., Sallust devoted himself to literature. His surviving works include his letters to Caesar (c. 50 B.C. and 46 B.C.), which contain proposals for reform of the state, and two short works, De coniuratione Catilinae (c. 43 B.C. or 41 B.C.) and Bellum Jugurthinum (c. 41 B.C. or 39–36 B.C.). Sallust’s last work—the Historiae, written in five books in the years 36–35 B.C. and dealing with the events of 78–66 B.C.—has been preserved only in brief fragments. Sallust’s works are marked by liveliness of exposition, superbly drawn characters, and an artistic mastery of narration; they provide a vivid picture of the decline of Roman society, the moral disintegration of the nobilitas, and the Senate’s inability to govern the state.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Poln. sobr. soch. Translated and annotated by V. Rudakov. St. Petersburg, 1894.
Zagovor Katiliny: Iugurtinskaia voina. Translated by M. B. Gol’denveizer. Moscow, 1916.
“Pis’ma k Tsezariu-startsu … Fragmenty ‘Istorii.’” Vestnik drevnei istorii, 1950, no. 1.

REFERENCES

Utchenko, S. L. Ideino-politicheskaia bor’ba v Rime nakanune padeniia Respubliki. Moscow, 1952. (Contains a translation of Sallust’s letters to Caesar.)
Syme, R. Sallust. Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1964.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.