Sallust’s Non-partisan Attitude in His Monographs

Abstract

Sallust was often viewed as Caesar’s historiographic partisan from some critics’ standpoint. In addition to Sallust’s actual political alliances, his bitterness against birth and nobility in historical writings seems to support the argument that Sallust was guilty of any harsh bias or unfair distortion in the portrayal of events or persons on the basis of his predilection for the populares and malice against the optimates. It is true that Sallust allows himself to use the political catchwords of the populares when he is attacking the other side. However, some clues can be found which show that he exceeds the limit of a popularis pamphleteer. An example which proves that he is not by any means wedded to the populares’ cause is a statement pertaining to the situation after the restoration of the powers of the tribunes of the plebs in 70 B.C.. The digression on the civil strife after the fall of Carthage in the Bellum Iugurthinum also shows that Sallust’s criticism against the nobility is not the same thing with his full support for the other side. In his view people was equally guilty with the nobility of the political disintegration of the state. It cannot be denied that Sallust writes much against the nobility. It is because the nobility was usually in control of policy and power, not because their opponents were free from faults. In some cases where the plebs usurped power and took the initiative, as with the establishment of the Mamilian commission, he condemns them no less severely. Judging from accounts taken as examples above, it is possible for his attitude to permeate in his dealing with each individual who had played their parts in turbulent times. And it can be assumed that he did not applaud or blame individuals on the basis of their party, but looked for virtue and vice in them, of whatever affiliations. In treating the question of Sallust’s impartiality, his attitude to Cicero is one of the most important points to discuss. Because indeed he and Cicero stood for conflicting conception of politics, history and literary style alike. In fact, there are points which arouse suspicion of Sallust’s malice to Cicero. The omission of Cicero’s Catilinarian orations is a representative example given in evidence by those who have a doubt as to Sallust’s impartiality in his dealing with Cicero. In addition, some try to find not only the omission but also the jest of the orations. In spite of suspicion attached to Sallust, there are matters for consideration which show that for no purpose of despising or ignoring Cicero, he omitted or passed over many details related with Cicero and his orations. One of the matters taken into consideration is the fact that Cicero’s speeches were published and already well known before Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae. And Sallust’s comment on the first Catilinarian oration, even if without warmth, can be regarded as praise and implies that his omission was not due to malice. It is true that Sallust does not allow Cicero to fill the center of the picture. But he assigns Cicero an appropriate, even if limited, quota of praise. Instead of Cicero, it is Caesar who takes the center in the senatorial debate on whether to execute the captured conspirators. At first glance, this distortion of history confirms some critics’ belief that Sallust undertook to advocate Caesar in the Bellum Catilinae. However, their belief cannot help being reduced by the fact that Caesar is placed in the most deliberate juxtaposition with Cato the younger. It is important to note here that in careful and vivid sketches of the characters of the two speakers Sallust pays attention to the two men’s virtue itself, not their political allegiance. As in the case of the Bellum Catilinae in which Sallust does not draw a sharp and consistent distinction between corrupt optimates and virtuous populares, suspicions of tendentiousness can be mitigated on closer inspection of the individuals in the Bellum Iugurthinum. Especially, his treatment of Metellus and Marius brings forward evidence to show that Sallust gives a dispassionate record of a controversial period. It is clear that the noble general Metellus by no means suffers in comparison with Marius. Just as Metellus is not painted too black, Marius is not excessively glorified. In rendering Marius, Sallust skilfully mixes the good and the bad, so that the truth concerning Sallust’s portrait of Marius probably lies somewhere between the bonae artes ascribed to him at the outset of his career and ambitio which marked his later career. It must candidly be confessed that as a historian Sallust is careless in chronological or geographical detail, vague as to numbers, dates and distances, impressionistic rather than factual. Nevertheless, it is no longer possible to accept the view that he resorted to malicious or tendentious falsification for party-political ends.