# Sallust 1.6-8

Sallust's Bellum Catilinae, Sallust, 1.6 to 1.8. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/sallust-s-bellum-catilinae/sallust/1.6

Upon returning to Rome, Sallust was accused of extortion and of plundering his province, but through Caesar's intervention he was never brought to trial. The evidence draws moralizing contrasts between Sallust's behaviour and his censorious writings and suggests a source for the ill-gotten wealth that created the splendid Sallustian Gardens (Horti Sallustiani). The tradition about his morals seems to have originated in scurrilous gossip and by a confusion between the historian and his adopted son, Augustus' minister Sallustius Crispus, a man of great wealth and luxurious tastes. Sallust's political career ended soon after his return to Rome. His retirement may have been voluntary, as he himself maintains, or forced upon him by the withdrawal of Julius Caesar's favour or even by Caesar's assassination in 44. Sallust may have begun to write even before the Triumvirate was formed late in 43. Sallust was born in a time of civil war. As he grew to maturity, foreign war and political strife were commonplace; thus it is not surprising that his writings are preoccupied with violence. His first monograph, Bellum Catilinae (43-42 BC; Catiline's War ), deals with corruption in Roman politics by tracing the conspiracy of Catiline, a ruthlessly ambitious patrician who had attempted to seize power in 63 BC after the suspicions of his fellow nobles and the growing mistrust of the people prevented him from attaining it legally. Catiline was supported by certain members of the upper classes who were prompted either by ambition or by the hope of solving their financial problems by Catiline's accession to power. But he also had the backing of Italy's dissatisfied veterans, impoverished peasants, and overburdened debtors. In Sallust's view, Catiline's crime and the danger he presented were unprecedented. Indeed, alarmed contemporaries may have exaggerated the significance of the incident; yet, had the government not acted as firmly as it did, a catastrophe could have occurred. Sallust describes the course of the conspiracy and the measures taken by the Senate and Cicero, who was then consul. He brings his narrative to a climax in a senatorial debate concerning the fate of the conspirators, which took place on Dec. 5, 63. In Sallust's eyes, Caesar and Cato represented civic virtue and were the significant speakers in the debate; he regarded the deaths of these men as marking the end of an epoch in the history of the republic. A digression in this work indicates that he considered party strife as the principal factor in the republic's disintegration.

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Sallust's Bellum Catilinae, Sallust. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
License: Used with permission (https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/about.html). Source: https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sallust/sallustbritannica.html.