Catiline's Conspiracy, the Jugurthine War, Histories by Sallust

Author:Sallust
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, Rome, General, Literary Criticism, Ancient & Classical
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2010-04-15T05:37:57+00:00

41 The custom of parties and factions and, then, of all evil practices arose at Rome a few years before from inactivity and an abundance of those things which mortals consider to be priorities. For before the destruction of Carthage71 the Roman people and [2] senate managed the commonwealth placidly and restrainedly between them. There was no struggle amongst citizens either for glory or for domination: dread of an enemy maintained the community in its good practices. But, when that source of alarm [3] left their minds, recklessness and haughtiness – things, to be sure, which favourable circumstances attract – made their entrance. So the inactivity which in adverse circumstances they [4] had craved was, once acquired, more harsh and bitter.72 For [5] the nobility began to turn their rank, and the people their freedom, into matters of whim: every man for himself appropriated, looted and seized. So the whole was split into two parties, and the commonwealth, which had been neutral, was rent apart.

But it was the nobility which derived more power from [6] factiousness; the plebs’ strength, amorphous as it was and dispersed [7] amongst a great number, had less potency. The conduct of war and of domestic matters rested on the decision of a few; in the same hands were the treasury, provinces, magistracies, glories and triumphs; the people were oppressed by soldiering and want, while commanders and a few others snatched the [8] plunder of war; and meanwhile the parents or small children of every soldier whose neighbour was more powerful were [9] driven from their abode. So avarice, accompanied by powerfulness, attacked without limit or restraint, it tainted and devastated everything, it attached neither weight nor sanctity to [10] anything, until it caused itself to fall headlong. For, as soon as some of the nobility were discovered who would put true glory before unjust power, the community began to quake and civil dissension to arise, like a convulsion of the earth.

42 For, after Ti. and C. Gracchus (whose ancestors had contributed much to the commonwealth in the Punic and other wars73) had begun to champion the freedom of the plebs and to expose the crimes of the few, the nobility – guilty and therefore stunned – confronted the actions of the Gracchi, sometimes through the allies and those of the Latin name, at other times through the Roman equestrians, whose hope of sharing74 had divided them from the plebs; and first they executed Tiberius by the sword, then, after a few years, Gaius, embarked as he was on the same course – the one a tribune, the other a triumvir for the founding [2] of colonies; and, with the latter, M. Fulvius Flaccus.75 Admittedly, in their desire for conquest, the Gracchi did not show a [3] sufficiently moderate spirit; but it is preferable to be conquered in a moral manner than to conquer injustice in an immoral [4] one.76 Therefore the nobility, capitalizing on their conquest according to their whim, annihilated many mortal beings by

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