of their lives, irregular and licentious, and it may well be doubted, whether either of them carried into fair and successful operation the moral theories which they were so anxious to promulgate.—And yet, although Sallust was confessedly a man of loose and corrupt principles, it is far from being certain that he was the monster of iniquity which some have been pleased to represent him. In the case at present under consideration, it is more than probable that he owed his exclusion from the senate to the violence of the patrician party, to which he was warmly opposed. The female, whose name is connected with this disgraceful affair was Fausta, the daughter of Sylla, and wife of Milo, and the injured husband is said to have caused the offender to be scourged by his slaves. Now, as Fausta was not more remarkable for her personal attractions than for utter want of character, it seems rather extraordinary that, at a time when the corruption of manners had almost reached its maximum, the intimacy of a Roman senator with so abandoned a female should be deemed worthy of so severe a punishment as expulsion from his order. I cannot but think, therefore, that Sallust was sacrificed to the party spirit which agitated, and in fact divided, the republic. The prosecution against Milo, as has already been remarked, took place the same year that Sallust was tribune of the commons; and the latter, who was a devoted partisan of Caesar, had found means to defeat the plans of Cicero and the republican party, and procure the condemnation of Milo. Now the censor Appius Pulcher was seeking, it appears, the friendship of Cicero, whose aid was necessary to his projects, and it would seem that, in order to propitiate the good will of the orator, and other individuals the party of Pompey, he ventured upon a decisive step against Sallust, which he sought to hide beneath the specious pretext of a regard for public morals.2 What think you of this theory, Henry Arlington? H. I am strongly inclined to adopt it, my dear Doctor, since, admitting it to be true, we may, without regarding Sallust as at all more virtuous than the great body of his contemporaries, be enabled to shield him, by this means, from the virulent abuse of Pompey's freedman Lenaeus, whose work should rather be called a frantic satire than an historical document. But proceed, if you please, with the life of the Roman. Dr. B. The ignominious sentence thus inflicted on him, whether merited or not, baffled all his hopes of present preferment, and, quitting the capital, he joined his patron Caesar, who was then in Gaul. Following the fortunes of that eminent commander, through all the changing scenes of the civil contest which soon after ensued, we find him bearing 1. Aul. Gell., 17, 18. 2. Schoell, Hist. Lit. Rom., vol. ii. p. 21.—Baehr, Gesch. Rom. Lit., p. 374. 3. Sueton. de Grammat 15.-Op. ed. Crus., vol. ii. p. 383.-Compare Schol in Horat. Sat. 1, 2, 48. a share eventually in the expedition to Africa, where the scattered remnants of Pompey's party had rallied under the banners of Scipio and Juba. When this region was subdued, he was left by Caesar as praetor of Numidia; and, about the same time, he married Terentia, the divorced wife of Cicero.1 H. What a blessing it must have been, Dr. Barton, to have lived under so virtuous a governor. Dr. B. If Dio Cassius speak the truth, Henry, I would rather be excused from being governed by such a praetor as Sallust. The historian gives a sorry picture of his administration in Africa, charging him with flagrant extortion, and with the open despoiling of his province. Caesar, he says, assigned this region unto him, "to govern it in appearance, but, to plunder it in reality,” λόγῳ μὲν ἄρχειν, ἔργῳ δὲ ἄγειν τε καὶ φέρειν ἐπέτρε yev.2 And he seems, according to Dio's statement, to have been by no means backward in fulfilling Caesar's expectations; for, to borrow another phrase from Dio, he did not put in practice what he wrote, ook uiμñoaro T EOYW TOÙS XóYOUs. Alas! for poor human nature, Henry, “quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus !" H. You succeeded so well a moment ago, Doctor, in defending Sallust from another charge, that I wish you would again become his advocate on the present occasion. Is there nothing that can be urged in his behalf? Dr. B. It would not require much skill, Henry, to make out a very plausible case in favour of Sallust, and that too on grounds merely of a probable nature. For it is difficult to conceive, how such conduct, as is alleged against him, can be in any way reconciled with the principles professed by him in his writings, or how a man so deeply guilty, as his enemies made him to be, could have publicly affected such rigid morali ty, without outraging, in the most shameless manner, the feelings of all his contemporaries. We are tempted to believe, therefore, that Dio Cassius, and the writers who, after him, have repeated these discreditable stories, were led astray by the declamations of the numerous enemies of our historian. One of the later editors, indeed, of the works of Sallust, has started a singular hypothesis, according to which, Dio is thought to have followed a popular tradition, which, confounding Sallust with Catiline, from the circumstance of the former's having written the histcry of the latter, ascribed to the historian the excesses committed by Catiline himself in his government of Africa !3-Well, Henry, what is your ver dict? 1. Pseudo. Cic. Declam. c. 8. seqq. 2. Hist. Rom. 43, 9.-Ed. Reimar. vol. i. p. 346 3. Schöll, Hist. Rom. Lit. vol. ii. p. 22.-O. M. Müller, Darstellung, &c., p. 47 segg. H. I would like to decide, Doctor, in favour of Sallust, but I feel myself bound in candour to pronounce an opinion against him. The arguments, just adduced in his favour, are, to say the best of them, more imposing than solid, and the hypothesis which you were kind enough to mention is too absurd to require a serious refutation.—But what was the fate of Sallust under this charge of extortion and spoliation? Dr. B. It was such as might have been expected in the peculiar complexion of the times. He was acquitted by Caesar, his all-powerful protector.-After the expiration of his government, Sallust renounced all public employments, and betook himself to a luxurious retirement, with his, as I fear you will term it, ill-gotten wealth. He chose for his favourite retreats, a villa at Tibur, which had belonged to Caesar, and a magnificent palace, which he built in the suburbs of Rome, surrounded by delightful pleasure-grounds, afterwards well known and celebrated by the name of the Gardens of Sallust. Possessed of every attraction, the Sallustian palace and gardens became, after the death of their original proprietor, the residence of successive emperors. Augustus chose them as the scene of his most sumptuous entertainments. The taste of Vespasian preferred them to the palace of the Caesars. Even the virtuous Nerva, and stern Aurelian, were so attracted by their beauty, that, while at Rome, they made them their constant abode.1-In these gardens, or in his villa at Tibur, Sallust passed the concluding years of his life, dividing his time between literary avocations and the society of his friends, among whom he numbered Lucullus, Messala, and Cornelius Nepos. H. But, my dear Doctor, if such were Sallust's friends, and such his favourite studies, how is it possible that he could have indulged in that excessive libertinism which has been so often imputed to him? Dr. B. Your question, Henry, is very well put, and certainly does not admit of an easy answer. I think it more than probable, therefore, that the historian has been here confounded with the dissolute individual of the same name whom Horace mentions in the first book of his satires. For my own part, I do not doubt, as I have already remarked, but that our author was a man of loose morals, and that he rapaciously plundered his province, like most Roman governors of the day. Still, I wil! never believe him to have been, as he is sometimes depicted, an abandoned profligate. Much of the obloquy, that was heaped upon his name, appears to have emanated from political ar.tagonists, and, of all things in this world, political diatribes are assuredly the most pregnant with falsehood. Now Sallust, it seems, being the decided enemy of Pompey 1. Nardini Vet. Rom. 47.—Adler, Beschreib. von Rom. p. 221.-Gerhard. Epiel. ad Gerlach, p. 25.—Dunlop's Roman Literature, vol. ii,. p. 146. ad said of that Roman, that he was a man "oris probi, animo inverecundo." Lenaeus, the freedman of Pompey, to whom you alluded a short time ago, avenged his master by the most virulent abuse of his enemy, in a work which would seem to have made a complete sacrifice of truth to invective.1 H. From what premises, Doctor, do you draw this latter inference, since the work itself has not come down to us? Dr. B. Why, Henry, we may fairly judge, I think, of the injustice which he did to the life of the historian, from what he says of him as an author. He calls him, as we learn from Suetonius, "nebulonem vita scriptisque monstrosum; praeterea priscorum Catonisque ineruditissimum furem."2 This is the language of one of your thorough-going political partisans, who has entrusted his reason as well as his principles to the safe-keeping of his leader.—I wish we had the life of Sallust written by Asconius Pedianus, in the age of Augustus; it might have served as a corrective of the unfavourable impressions which have been produced by this libel, for it deserves no better name, of the freedman of Pompey. H. Aye, Doctor, but what will you say to the declamation against Sallust which has actually reached our times, and that too from the pen of Cicero ? Dr. B. Cicero never wrote it, Henry. It appeared long after the death of that orator, and is now generally assigned, by critics, to a rheto rician in the reign of Claudius, called Porcius Latro. It is in the style of what we may suppose Lenaeus's work to have been, a tissue of invent ed or exaggerated calumnies, altogether unworthy of grave credence.3 H. And yet, Doctor, I was told by Boydel, of Christ-church, no longer ago than last evening, that Le Clerc, the Hebrew professor at Amsterdam, and also Meisner of Prague, in their respective accounts of the life of Sallust, have adopted these very calumnies which you so openly condemn. Dr. B. Boydel should have told you also, Henry, that Sallust's character has received more justice in the prefatory memoir and notes of De Brosses, and from the researches of Wieland.5-But come, let us now consider Sallust as a writer. Which of the Greeks does he appear to you to resemble the most? H. I should say, that his peculiar taste led him to select Thucydides for his model. He had no one among his own countrymen to imi 1. Sueton. de Grammat. c. 15. 2. Sueton. 1. c. 3. Schoell, Hist. Rom. Lit. vol. ii. p. 23.-Dunlop, Rom. Lit. vol. ii. p. 149. 4. Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. vol. xxiv. p. 368.-Histoire de la Repub. Rom. vol. iii., p. 307. 5. Ad. Horat Sat. 2, 48, p. 57-73. tate in the art of historic composition, since that was in a very low state when Sallust began to write. He, therefore, naturally recurred to the productions of the Greek historians, and attempted to transplant into his own language the vigour and conciseness which characterise in so eminent a degree the style of Thucydides.1 Dr. B. Very correctly remarked, my young friend, only you ought to have added, that the strict imitation, with which Sallust has followed his Grecian prototype, has gone far towards lessening the effect of his own original genius. Still we cannot but admire the wonderful success of the Roman writer, in imitating the vigour and conciseness of the Grecian historian, and infusing into his composition something of that dignified austerity which distinguishes the work of his great model. H. But, Doctor, you surely do not mean to be understood as affirming, that Sallust's style is an imitation of that of Thucydides ? Dr. B. The question does you credit, Henry. I mean, when I say that Sallust imitates the historian of the Peloponnesian war, an imitation of his general manner, his rapidity, his force, his power of compression, rather than of his language. Thucydides, for example, often employs long and involved periods, while Sallust is ever abrupt and sententious, even to a fault.-Have you taken notice how often the latter rejects the copulative? H. I have, Doctor, and I think it produces a monotonous effect, and a total want of that flow and variety which constitute the principal charm of the historic period.—I was walking yesterday, with a fellow-commoner of All-Souls, and, the conversation happening to turn upon Sallust, and the peculiarities of his style, we made up between us the following list of items, about which, my dear Doctor, although a little matter in itself, I would like to have your opinion. We noticed, in the first place, that, in the ablative absolute, he sometimes suppresses the noun; as, proditis quos ducebat ;2 and the antecedent to the relative; as, quam ob quae praedicabat.3 We observed also particular expressions frequently occurring; as ex sententia, etiam tum, sine mora, &c. Then again, we found several instances, where two words nearly synonymous were employed; as, carus, acceptusque,—varius incertusque,—bonum atque honestum,-rogat atque hortatur, &c. We remarked, also, the use of the infinitive for the gerund; as gratificari for gratificandi,1—adgredi, for adgrediendi;5 and the omission of the connectives et and que occurs on almost every page. Another peculiarity, also, forced itself upon our attention, his use of two different constructions in the compass of the 1. Dunlop's Rom Lit. vol. ii. p. 149, Lond. ed., 2. Jug. c. 106. 3. Jug. c. 108. 4. Jug. c.3. 5. Jug. c. 89. |