Sallust

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Like Cicero, Gaius Sallustius Crispus (b. 86 BCE) started his career as a political outsider of sorts—though still as a member of the moneyed elite. Unlike Cicero, Sallust was decidedly a different type of politician—and author. A known populist, he was expelled from the senate and came to support Julius Caesar in the civil war with Pompey but then withdrew from politics to write historical monographs. In this course, students will study Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, an account of the (so-called) conspiracy of Catiline, as well as fragments from his longer and largely lost annalistic Historiae. Attention will be paid to Sallust’s distinctive style, the influence of other authors and the political context on his work, as well as how his account of the Catilinarian affair does and does not cohere with other accounts, namely Cicero’s. The representation of other literary genres within Sallust’s historiography, such as oratory, will also be considered alongside the question of how to approach literary fragments. In addition to translation assignments and exams, students will also work on a commentary project and a short research paper.