name phragmos. The name is unattested and Kind emends to LVSI- (i.e., L
K); cf. S.
RE 3A.1 (1927) 61, F.E. Kind.
PTK
S (N-P.) ⇒ S
Cn. Sallustius (65 – 45 BCE)
A friend of C, whom he followed into banishment in 58 BCE. He is likely to be
the author of the Empedoclea (Cicero, ad Q. fratr. 2.9.3), presumably a philosophical poem
treating E’ theories (or simply a Latin translation?).
GRL §110.
Bruno Centrone
C. Sallustius Crispus of Amiternum (45 – 35 BCE)
Born 87– 86 BCE, tr. pl. 52 BCE, expelled from the Senate 50 BCE by the censor Ap. Claudius
Pulcher on a possibly trumped-up charge of adultery, then entered military service under
I C; praetor 47 BCE, and governor of Africa Noua 46 BCE. He retired from
politics and composed two historical monographs, the Catilina (events of 64– 62 BCE) and the
Iugurtha (events of 112– 105 BCE), then began an annalistic history of Rome from 78 BCE,
unfinished at his death ca 35 BCE.
The two monographs offer evaluative narratives of moral decay in Roman society, pre-
sented through speeches and letters, and focused on a single enemy of Rome. They display
an increasing occupation with geography, from the brief excursus on Rome (Cat. 6) to an
extensive one on Africa (Iug. 16–19). Like the speeches and letters, the excursuses set the
stage, and mark turns, in the narrative; they evince a pragmatic approach to geography
(cf. P Book 34; or S 1.1.1, 1.1.16, 1.1.18, 1.1.22, 2.5.8, 2.5.13). Sallust
describes each site, then its people, with He ̄rodotean flourishes.
Sallust completed four books (to 72 BCE), and part of Book 5, of the Historiae, which
survive in extracts (speeches and a letter), quotations by grammarians and others, and some
scraps on papyrus and parchment; six excursuses can be detected among the fragments of
Books 1–4. Sertorius is said to have met sailors at Gade ̄s returning from a voyage to a pair
of Blessed Isles remote in the Atlantic ( probably Madeira and Porto Santo), which Sallust
briefly described (Book 1, frr.100–102 M.; Keyser 1993). In recording the pirate war and the
conquest of Isauria by Seruilius, Sallust described ( probably in Book 1) the region of his
activity: Lukian coast, Pamphulia, and Lukaonia (Keyser 1997). In connection with the revolt
of Lepidus, Sallust described the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, offering data on the fertility
of Sardinia and its deadly “parsley” (Book 2, frr.1–8, 10–12); again for the pirate war, he
provided an excursus on Crete (again treating fertility: Book 3?). As his scene shifted from
the Aegean to the Black Sea, he included a counter-clockwise periplous of that sea,
delineating coastal sites and rivers and addressing hydrography (20 fragments of Book 3).
Probably to introduce Spartacus, Sallust described the Sicilian strait, giving a naturalistic
etiology of its myths and currents (Book 4).
Sallust emphasized the value of local traditions (Iug. 17.7), resorted to geographical
determinism (Hist. Book 3, frr.74, 78 M.), introduced physical etiologies (A’
C. SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS OF AMITERNUM