Background: a roman from the senatorial elite; started out on public career (cursus honorum) as appropriate for a young Roman from this class

Background: A Roman from the senatorial elite ; started out on public career (cursus honorum) as appropriate for a young Roman from this class

• 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

Writes two monographs:

• Writes two monographs:

• 1 about the Catilinarian conspiracy because he considered it a particularly dangerous event: Ch. 4

• Political bias: on side of populares, opposing optimates; admires Caesar

• Monograph promotes populares cause and Caesar; he often distorts facts and correct chronology;

• He justifies political motivation of others

• Similarly, in Jugurthan War – Marius – the novus homo is the hero

Historical works dedicated to a specific historical event or period

• Historical works dedicated to a specific historical event or period

• Gaius Sallustius Crispus – aka “Sallust’ (86 BCE – 35 BCE) – tribune in 52 BCE; expelled from the senate in 50 BCE; commanded legion for Caesar in 49 BCE; Praetor in 46 BCE; Governor of Africa; Tried for extortion; retired and wrote history; Wrote Bellum Catilinae and Bellum Jugurthum

The Jugurthan War ( Bellum Iugurthinum)– on the struggle with the Numidian king Jugurtha 112-106

• The Jugurthan War ( Bellum Iugurthinum)– on the struggle with the Numidian king Jugurtha 112-106

• The Catilinarian Conspiracy (Bellum Catilinae)

Used as model Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War ,

• Used as model Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War ,

• Followed Thucydides’ political and psychological themes but adapted them to Roman context

• Reflected especially in his analysis of people’s motives

• 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

Abandons annalistic method

• Abandons annalistic method

• Raised the literary value of history

• To him History has to be more than anarrative, it must observe tendencies, and it must explain. He interprets political intrigues