Page:Sallust - tr. Rolfe (Loeb 116).djvu/21

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INTRODUCTION

diction made him a favourite writer with Fronto and his school. Towards the end of the second century Aemilius Asper wrote a commentary on the works of Sallust, and in the fourth century St. Augustine calls him "nobilitatae veritatis historicus."[1] The influence of his style is seen in Ammianus Marcellinus, Dictys Cretensis, Hegesippus, Sulpicius Severus, and Julius Exsuperantius, and it continued into the Middle Ages.

The Pseudo-Sallustian Works

In codex Vaticanus 3864 the excerpts from the Historiae[2] are followed in the same handwriting by two suasoriae, or pleas, addressed to Julius Caesar and composed in an evident imitation of Sallust's manner, although without the use of his name. In both of these advice is given to the dictator as to the proper conduct of the government, the first taking the form of an oration, the second apparently that of a letter. We also find in our manuscripts, sometimes in company with genuine works of Cicero and sometimes with the Bella of Sallust, an Invective against Cicero ascribed to Sallust and a reply purporting to be that of Cicero. The former is considered to be a specimen of the pamphleteer literature of the period following the death of Caesar.[3] The writer, who makes no attempt to imitate Sallust's

  1. De. Civ. Dei, 1. 5.
  2. See p. xvi.
  3. Schanz, Röm. Lit. i. p. 234.


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