Sallust biography of abraham
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In the preface to Bellum Catilinae, he contrasts the virtus (manly excellence) and disciplina (discipline) of Rome's founders with the avarice and luxury that supplanted them once prosperity from conquests eroded traditional mores, leading to civil strife and moral contagion.[40][41]This pessimism frames historical events not as isolated incidents but as symptoms of systemic decay, where ambition (ambitio) and greed (avaritia) supplanted public service, fostering factions and betraying the res publica.
He made deliberate use of speeches, a common technique in ancient historiography, but in Sallust’s case, they serve more than stylistic flair. He consciously rejected the flowing Ciceronian style in favor of a more pointed, old-fashioned rhythm.
Except for negative reviews, of course. Through his compact yet powerful works, The War Against Jugurtha and The Conspiracy of Catiline, Sallust dissected the soul of a crumbling republic with a precision that still stings.
The Life of Sallust
Sallust was born around 86 BC in the town of Amiternum, in the Sabine hills of central Italy.
It’s confronting the uncomfortable truth that the seeds of political collapse are often sown not by enemies, but by the decay of values within.
Vladimir Vulic
Hello, my name is Vladimir, and I am a part of the Roman-empire writing team.
I am a historian, and history is an integral part of my life.
To be honest, while I was in school, I didn’t like history so how did I end up studying it?
He attributes the initial corruption to exposure during eastern campaigns, where Roman forces first indulged in "women and drink," habits that permeated society and amplified greed upon return with spoils.Sallust extends this critique in Bellum Jugurthinum, portraying avarice as enabling foreign manipulation of Roman institutions, as seen in King Jugurtha's bribery of senators to evade justice, culminating in his quip that Rome was "a cityready to be sold, and that too if it finds a buyer." The protracted Jugurthine War (112–105 BC) exemplifies how imperial governance bred endemic corruption, with nobles prioritizing personal enrichment over state welfare, allowing greed to prolong conflicts and discredit Roman authority abroad.
However, Sallust's insertion of a purported "first conspiracy" in 65 BC lacks corroboration and likely embellishes to underscore moral continuity; his minimization of Cicero's forensic acumen and emphasis on aristocratic cupidity betray popularis bias, stemming from personal animus after his 50 BC senatorial expulsion for extortion.
Reading Sallust is not just reading history. These gardens became imperial property after Sallust’s death in 35 BC and would be used by emperors from Tiberius to Aurelian. The consistent theme is decline: from the frugality and discipline of earlier generations to the greed and self-interest of his own time. This deterministic lens, drawn from personal disillusionment after political scandals, underscores historiography as a futile admonition against inevitable downfall, prioritizing causal analysis of vice over heroic exempla.[44][45]
Stylistic Approach
Archaic Diction and Concision
Sallust's stylistic approach emphasized archaic diction, drawing heavily from earlier Roman authors like Cato the Elder, to evoke the severity and moral rigor of the Republic's formative years.40 BC)
Kings are more suspicious of good men than of bad, and always fear men of merit... Adjectives often function as substantives, such as boni for "good men," while archaic grammatical forms—like accusative plurals in -īs (montīs for montēs) and contracted perfects (fuēre for fuērunt)—evoke an austere, republican antiquity.[46]Sallust's diction further reinforces this severity through innovative and bold vocabulary, including adverbs in -im (privatim, paulatim), adjectives in -osus (factiosus), and abstract nouns in -tudo (fortitudo), alongside words repurposed with archaic senses.
whose ability to earn or to obtain credit depended solely on the labour of their hands, left their work to follow Marius about, regarding their own needs as less important than his advancement. Thucydides served as his chief Greek model, inspiring brevity, analytical digressions on human nature, and the integration of speeches to reveal motivations, with parallels in tone, grammar, and compositional form extending to specific passages like the portrayal of civil strife.[1][50] Domestically, Cato the Elder informed Sallust's archaic diction and moral rigor, as ancient critics noted his adoption of Catonian vocabulary and severe brevity to idealize early Roman virtus.
He was reinstated and later appointed as governor of Africa Nova, where he served between 46 and 45 BC. Though his tenure was marked by charges of corruption and extortion, he returned to Rome wealthy and disillusioned, retiring from politics for good. A man of ambition, charm, and recklessness, Catiline is portrayed as the product of a diseased society—someone who appealed to Rome’s desperate poor and embittered veterans.
In that regard, Sallust shares more with modern investigative journalists than traditional historians. Sallust identifies the influx of Eastern wealth following campaigns like Manlius Vulso's in Asia Minor (187–179 BC) as an early catalyst, but emphasizes the post-Carthaginian peace as the decisive enabler of otium (idleness) and indulgence, which he likens to a plague spreading through society and politics.[42][43]His outlook rejects cyclical renewal, viewing Rome's trajectory as terminal in his lifetime (86–35 BC), with no prospect for restoring ancestral integrity amid the dominance of self-interested elites.
41–40 BCE), a monograph on the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BCE, followed by Bellum Jugurthinum on the Jugurthine War (c. their lust for empire, made them regard all kings as potential foes. Post-Carthage, however, prosperity bred luxury and greed, inverting values so that wealth became the measure of status, corrupting the nobility and igniting factional strife.Virtus, central to Sallust's ethical framework, represented not mere martial prowess but a comprehensive moral vigor enabling individuals to achieve gloria through public service and restraint, as opposed to the vitia (vices) of self-indulgence and cupidity that he saw dominating the late Republic.[32] In Bellum Jugurthinum, Sallust extends this analysis, portraying virtus as the animating force of the mind directed toward honorable deeds, which yields true potency and renown, while its neglect—evident in the bribery and incompetence plaguing the Jugurthine campaigns—exemplifies systemic rot.[33] He laments that Romans, once exemplary in virtus, had devolved into pursuing dominion through corruption rather than merit, with figures like Jugurtha exploiting this decay to evade justice until Marius's virtuous intervention.[34] Sallust's diagnosis posits causal realism in historical causation: external security without internal moral anchors inevitably breeds enslavement to base desires, as virtus alone sustains liberty and empire.[35]This theme underscores Sallust's partisan yet empirically grounded critique, drawing from his Caesarian experiences to warn that unchecked moral entropy—manifest in events like the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC—threatens the state's survival unless virtus is revived through exempla of past greatness.[23] He attributes no supernatural or abstract forces to this decline but roots it in human choices, where the shift from communal honor to individualistic excess post-146 BC directly precipitated civil discord, as evidenced by the proliferation of debt, demagoguery, and elite venality in his narratives.[36][37]
Critiques of Avarice and Empire
Sallust identified avarice (avaritia) as a corrosive force that undermined Roman virtues following the republic's imperial successes, particularly after the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, which flooded Rome with wealth and removed external checks on internal vices.