The Jugurthine War & The Conspiracy of Cataline

Sallust was a master of historical narrative, even if his history's can only barely be labled as such. In his desire to press home a moral of the greed and corruption of Rome he sacrificed much of the truth to his own political agenda, even more so than was normal for historians of the time. These two monographs are the only complete surviving works of the great Latin stylist, and despite the details are well worth the reading.

Great product in perfect condition

This is a primary source, so be prepared! It's a great read and a good way to flex your critical thinking skills. Any historian or classicist should enjoy this.

A great book.

This is one of those ancient works that arguably parallels our own times as some argue the things that happened within are evident in our own recent times and a sign of a possible crisis to come (though I would argue Rome went on for hundreds of years after the events in this book). This work focuses on two events during the later years of the Roman Republic: the Catiline Conspiracy (basically a young wanna be senator doesn't get elected and resents it and raises a secret army to take it yet gets caught yet some say the system was broken and saw him as a hero) and the Jugurthine War (a former ally of Rome, Jugurtha, rises to power against his cousins but one cousin gets away and flees to Rome for help and Rome realizes they'd rather have the biddable cousin than the tyrant king, Jugurtha). I'll break this up into sections but to reiterate some points going on in discussions all over the world some people draw parallels between the Catiline Conspiracy to the 1% Wall Street versus the 99%. And the Jugurthine War is about a former ally of Rome who rises to power in Numidia but then turns upon them using bribes and violence to control his territories while a cousin to this tyrant king begs Rome for assistance in securing his throne. So any parallels to former allies of ours or maybe a certain terrorist named Bin Laden who got military assistance from us back in the day and then turned against our country a la 9-11? Something to think about. Or, maybe go back further to Iran and Iraq before we went to war with the latter. Anyway, onward . . .JUGURTHINE WARI still remember reading this book back in the day and recalling a a famous Jugurtha quote: "Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit" ("a city for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should find a buyer," Sallust, Jug. 35.10). See, Jugurtha was known for bribing Roman officials (something he learned from his military service during the Punic Wars), including a former consul who had been involved in the murder trial of Gaius Gracchus (basically Gaius and his brother were seen as trying to shake up the Old Guard and were brutally murdered. Man does that sound like maybe the 99% arguments being made today?). The Roman heavy infantry were not used to hit and run tactics by Numidian light cavalry so they didn't accomplish much over the years. Later on a man named Gaius Marius was named Consul and he decided on a different tactic that involved having an ally-competitor turn Jugurtha over to Rome. The deposed tyrant was taken back to Rome for a victory march and then left to starve in one of Rome's great prisons. More important to Rome was the fact that Gaius Marius gained renown for ending the war and he and his quaestor, Cornelius Lucius Sulla, would both rise to power but then go to war against each other in the streets of Rome, resulting in a terror and invasion of the capitol by the Roman military. This would be the first time a Roman army occupied Rome which would set a dangerous precedent and later influence later Romans, including a young Julius Caesar.THE SECOND CATILINE CONSPIRACYTo some people Catiline might seem like a rich kid who didn't get his way and then chose to raise an army with his allies and prepare to march on Rome. To the younger nobles he was somebody who was going to shake up the Old Guard and "refresh" the Senate but to the masses he was even more favored. Debt was at an all time high and Catiline promised to help with that problem and that endeared him to veterans of the Punic Wars who were in massive debt and/or struggling to maintain their diminished farms or protect them from foreclosure. Sounds like anything happening today maybe? Hmmm. Well, the short of it was that there was evidence of an enemy army being formed in Gaul by some of Catiline's backers but some of them bailed once Cicero and other senators found out about it and got ready. Catiline, to his credit as a true Roman noble, went into battle knowing he would die. His corpse was found far in the front and he went down as a martyr. Julius Caesar, who would later end the Roman Republic, may have been impacted by some of things Catiline tried to do. Ironically, he voted for clemency for Catiline but was shouted down.WRITING STYLESallust was the type of writer who liked to go off on tangents and talk about the moral decay of Rome in the later years of its Republican Period. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed some of his off tangents though I can see them really irritating some of his readers. At times the writing didn't flow well but that could be said of most of the ancient texts. These guys were writing for a certain niche of people back in the day and weren't trying to necessarily be super entertaining nor amusing so you have to take that in stride or look for an entertaining summary of this period elsewhere. Sallust was considered something of a dramatist at times in this work and he was biased towards the Old Guard. He was a big fan of Julius Caesar and when things didn't go well he retired to his villa to write his views of Roman Republican History. By the way, he was a horrible governor in Africa but that's another story. In the end say what you will of Sallust. Unlike most writers his works are being read over two thousand years later. How many writers of any type will receive that honor? Not many. People who want to read this work online can find it at Project Guttenberg. Those who don't want to plow through such a work but are interested in the latter tale might enjoy Steven Saylor's "Catilina's Riddle".WRITING STYLE: B minus to B; FOCUSES/DETAILS: B plus to A minus; THEMES THAT PARALLEL OUR TIMES: B plus to A minus; ACCURACY/OBJECTIVE VIEWPOINT: B; WHEN READ LAST: 2010 (third reading); OVERALL GRADE: B plus.

I am giving this book four stars instead of five because I don't think Sallust's extrinsic moralism has worn well with time. He is right to note that rich, powerful governments are often corrupt, but the men and women who make up these governments do not change thir ways because someone preaches at them.As with other histories written in ancient times, the two stories contained in this book are partly historical data, partly historical narratives, and partly dramatic dialogue. Whenever Sallust wants to make a general point, like "Rome is the city where everything is for sale", he adapts the language of this assertion to the circumstances of a point of specific action, and then puts it into the mouth of one of his characters. Keep in mind that the dramatic dialogue may be fiction, but the underlying points may very well have been valid. Rome really was a city where almost everything was for sale, and reading narratives like these gives us a vivid look at this reality.This work is flawed, but we should be very happy that we have it because it gives us an alternate (pagan) look at power relationships within the late Roman Republic - a society that would soon become an Empire and produce written works (both Christian and secular) that are today read all over the world.

As all Penguin Classics, this translation is intended to be enjoyable by a modern reader with no knowledge of the Classical languages who wants to introduce him/herself to the Classical authors. Therefore the colorful cover and the emminently readable translation. However, the cover - a mythological mosaic of the Later Roman epoch - has nothing to do with the subject-matter, and the translation falls sometimes into unduly modernizing. There is a place where one speaks of the Roman "proletariat"?! Personally, I should prefer a translation that was readable but which made no attempt to give the impression of Ancient-Roman-society-very-much-alike-to-ours. But I must admit that, compared to, say, the Portuguese translation by Barreto Feio (a fine speciment of XIXth century prose, and enormously cumbersome to a modern reader) this trans. fares better.

Sallust was adept in the writing of history as these works attest. A reason not to read this work is if you are able to read it in the original Latin. A good primary source for those interested in this period of the Republic.His two works, The Jugurthine War & The Conspiracy of Catiline cover the events whereby the Romans were forced to hunt a North African ruler through the desert from hideout to hideout for years & where Cicero, acting in his capacity as Consul faced an insurrection led by a Roman.

great read , great quality

Quality as described, some pen in margins. Book was needed for uni work and delivered, although deviates from the Latin translation to become quite loose at times.