INTRODUCTION
their interpretation are matters of considerable uncertainty and difference of opinion, but the labours of De Brosse, Kritz, Dietsch, and Maurenbrecher[1] have gone far towards solving the problem.
The style of Sallust is quite unlike that of Caesar and Cicero. His model in the writing of history was Thucydides, whose brevity of expression he also imitated and, according to Seneca Rhetor,[2] even surpassed. He is also highly rhetorical and his language is decidedly archaistic, so much so that he was accused of pilfering from the works of Cato the Censor.[3] His reputation in antiquity was very high, although it was based for the most part on his last and greatest work, the Histories. Quintilian's opinion,[4] "nec opponere Thucydidi Sallustium verear," does more credit to his patriotism than to his critical acumen, but Martial's less extravagant verdict,[5] "primus Romana Crispus in historia," was true at the time when it was written. Sallust was criticized by Asinius Pollio and Livy, but his admirers and imitators far outnumbered his detractors. Tacitus, who deprived him of the first rank assigned him by Martial, speaks of him as "rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor,"[6] and paid him the still higher compliment of imitation. In Hadrian's time Sallust was even translated into Greek by a certain Zenobius, and his archaic
