# Sallust 1.9

Sallust's Bellum Catilinae, Sallust, 1.9. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/sallust-s-bellum-catilinae/sallust/1.9

In Sallust's second monograph, Bellum Jugurthinum (41-40 BC; The Jugurthine War ), he explored in greater detail the origins of party struggles that arose in Rome when war broke out against Jugurtha, the king of Numidia, who rebelled against Rome at the close of the 2nd century BC. This war provided the opportunity for the rise to the consulship of Gaius Marius, who, like Sallust and Cicero, was a "new man." His accession to power represented a successful attack on the traditionally exclusive Roman political elite, but it caused the kind of political conflict that, in Sallust's view, resulted in war and ruin. Sallust considered Rome's initial mismanagement of the war the fault of the "powerful few" who sacrificed the common interest to their own avarice and exclusiveness. Political turmoil in Rome during the late republic had social and economic causes (not overlooked by Sallust), but essentially it took the form of a power struggle between the aristocratic group in control of the Senate and those senators who enlisted popular support to challenge the oligarchy. This is the underlying framework of Sallust's schematic analysis of the events of that time—the clash between the nobility, or Senate, and the people, or plebeians. The Histories , of which only fragments remain, describes the history of Rome from 78 to 67 BC. Here Sallust deals with a wider range of subject matter, but party conflict and attacks on the politically powerful remain a central concern. Hints of hostility to the Triumvirate on Sallust's part may be detected in both Bellum Jugurthinum and the Histories . Two "Letters to Caesar" and an "Invective Against Cicero," Sallustian in style, have often been credited, although probably incorrectly, to Sallust.

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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.