rumour, which however was one of a much more positive nature than this which Asconius reports. Kritz also thinks that a reconciliation between Milo and Sallust cannot be believed, after what had happened. That is a matter which nobody can decide. Milo might easily forget his wrong, for he had been paid for it, and his wife made the thing familiar to him; and if Sallust did not forget the flogging, he knew that he was not the only man in Rome who had been served that way, and he might consider it as no more than the usual consequence of such an adventure. So the husband and the adulterer might very well come to terms for a political purpose. The Romans certainly were sometimes reconciled after abusing one another in a way which we do not imitate in modern times. I think, as I have said, that the story of Sallust's adultery is proved, as far as such a thing can be proved to us. The proof is the fact that a grave, learned, and honest man set it down deliberately in a book; and we have the passage of Varro in Gellius. Sallust may have reformed his ways, and when he preaches so finely in his Catilina and Jugurtha he may have been living a decent life. His marriage with the excellent old lady, Terentia, if we take the story, may be evidence that he was now an altered man. I should however have thought better of Sallust, if he had preached less. His moral talk is of the kind which we now call by the expressive term 'cant.'

Sallust is also charged with plundering the province of Numidia, and the author of the Declamation against Sallust is one of the witnesses for it. But we can give no weight to the author of this miserable composition, whoever he was. The Declamation was certainly written not long after Sallust's time, but it is a poor, feeble piece of work, which no man of sense could have written; and as we do not know who wrote it, we have nothing which

vouches for the evidence, and it should be rejected. Dion Cassius, a writer who is often unworthy of credit, because he was a lover of scandal and has a bad word for every body, says that a prosecution was commenced against Sallust for getting money unfairly in the province, but that his friend Caesar let him off; he adds that Sallust got into very bad repute for this affair, because his practice and his writings were so much at variance. Dion thought that Sallust wrote his historical works before he was governor of Numidia, and some modern writers have followed Dion in this opinion. But there is little doubt that here at least Dion was wrong; and it is supposed that if he was mistaken about the time when Sallust wrote, he may have been mistaken about the other matter too. But Dion's blunder in one thing, not in itself material or public, is no proof of his having blundered about a material fact, which, if true, must have been known. However, I set no value on Dion's testimony, and, as we say, we may give the historian the benefit of the doubt in this case.

One more remark in reference to Kritz, who defends Sallust's character. It is honourable and just to defend a man, even if he lived before the flood, when the evidence for his vices is insufficient. It is neither honourable nor just to give a man a bad name, when we have only rumour to support the charge. While then I hold Sallust's adultery to be proved as far as such things in times so remote can be proved, I do not admit that it is proved that he got money in Africa by dishonest means. But if he did come back to Rome very rich after one year's administration or somewhat more, he must have made very good use of his time; and the presumption is certainly against him. There were many ways of getting money in a country which had made a stout resistance to

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Caesar, and he had handed it over to Sallust to reduce to order. Kritz, who rejects both the testimony of the Declamator, and of Dion, does not do his client's case any good by the way in which he handles it. The Declamator, he says, has no evidence to give of Sallust's dishonesty except the fact that he brought great wealth from the province and made himself liable to be prosecuted for Repetundae.' Those, he adds, who believe this stupid writer, must be considered quite ignorant of Roman affairs or to have bad memories. Who is ignorant,' he says, 'that the great wealth with which Rome abounded, did not come from the city itself, but from the provinces ?' The answer is, every body knew that, and of course the Declamator knew it too; and he said that Sallust's money did come from the province. Every body,' says Kritz, 'who governed a province came home rich,'-but I could tell him some exceptions; 'nor, according to Roman notions, was this considered to be dishonourable or punishable.' Of course, as Kritz says, the governor was punishable for all illegal acts, for robbery, cruelty, and the like: 'but every body,' he further says, 'knew that a provincial governor was legally entitled to something out of the provincial revenues. Nor was this inconsistent with the nature of the case, for as the provincial governors were in the place of the kings, who were in all countries supported at the great cost of their subjects, it was not considered disgraceful, nor was it disgraceful, if the governors, imitating the kings, carried back to Rome the wealth which they had got in one year's government.' Kritz defends the alleged rapacity of Sallust by the universal rapacity, falsely assumed, of all Roman governors. But the question is not, if Sallust did exactly what all or most Roman governors did, but whether he who preached a virtuous life and contempt of

wealth, was as bad as many others. That is the reproach which has been made against him. As to the comparison between greedy kings, who spent their revenue in some way among their own people, and Roman governors who in a single year drew a princely fortune out of the same unhappy people, every annual governor, according to Kritz's explanation, making a huge sum in one year, and carrying it off, 'who is ignorant' that the two cases are as unlike as a heavy regular taxation of a country, and the plunder of the same country by an invading army, coming every year and followed every year by another?

The Catilina is probably Sallust's first historical work, and we may conjecture that it was written after Caesar's death, though some critics have supposed that it was written before. Sallust does not tell us when he wrote it nor what authorities he used; but as he was a young man at the time of the conspiracy, about twenty-three, he could not fail to know the principal facts, and he must have talked with many who were well acquainted with them; M. Crassus, for instance, whom he mentions (c. 48). There were the Acta Publica also, and the resolutions of the Senate, all which were public records and easily accessible. He must have known Cicero, and he had Cicero's orations before him and other writings of the orator, and also Cato's speech on the punishment of the conspirators (Cat. c. 52, the end). He has omitted some facts, which are mentioned by Cicero, Plutarch, Dion Cassius, and Asconius, the commentator on Cicero. A modern writer, Constantius Felicius Durantinus', has attempted to supply the omissions of Sallust.

Even those who admire the Catilina, admit that the author is not exact as to dates, and that he has not

1 It is a Latin History of the Conspiracy of Catilina, and dedicated to Pope Leo X. It is printed in Frotscher's edition of Sallust and elsewhere.

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always stated facts so precisely as he might have done; but they also say that ancient writers generally are not so careful about the chronology and smaller matters as modern writers are. Sallust has also been charged with unfairness towards Cicero, but this charge is not just. Cicero certainly would not have been satisfied with the historian's brief notice of his services in suppressing the conspiracy, but nobody can say that Sallust has treated him unfairly.

Some modern writers have thought that there is a great mystery in this affair of the conspiracy, and that we have not got the whole story. But Sallust has made it plain enough. Rome, always a military state, began to recruit her armies in Marius' time from the lowest class, and foreign mercenaries were hired in great numbers. The Romans had also to maintain a desperate struggle to keep the Germanic nations out of Italy, and it was necessary to continue Marius in command for several years. Even before Marius' time the same man had commanded the armies of Rome for years together in foreign parts. In such a state as Rome a general who had long been at the head of victorious armies was a dangerous citizen. The quarrels between Marius and Sulla ended in a military despotism, and from this time the soldier was the master of Rome. Sulla shed blood without mercy, confiscated property, and gave his soldiers money and lands. He died in B.C. 78, but the mischief that he did died not with him. He left a bad example and a number of men behind him, who, having wasted their ill-gotten wealth, wanted more, and revolution was the only way of getting it. There was a dissolute nobility, many of them poor and in debt, men who loved luxury and had no hope of mending their circumstances. There were noble women too, profligate and greedy,