Sallust is said to have married Terentia, whom Cicero had divorced (Jerome adv. Iov. 1). Probably he had no son, as he adopted a grandson of his sister.
Tac. Ann. iii. 30, ‘Crispum equestri ortum loco C. Sallustius, rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor, sororis nepotem in nomen adscivit.’
After Caesar’s death, Sallust retired from public life, and, having no taste for sport or agriculture, spent his leisure in writing history.
Cat. 4, ‘Ubi ... mihi reliquam aetatem a re publica procul habendam decrevi, non fuit consilium socordia atque desidia bonum otium conterere, neque vero agrum colundo aut venando servilibus officiis intentum aetatem agere; sed ... statui res gestas populi Romani carptim, ut quaeque memoria digna videbantur, perscribere.’
Sallust, as above stated, died B.C. 35.
(2) WORKS.
1. De Catilinae Coniuratione (so Cat. 4). The book is called bellum Catilinae by Quint. iii. 8, 9, and in some MSS.; in MSS. also bellum Catilinarium. The work was written after Caesar’s death (Cat. 53-4). It is, as Mommsen (R.H. iv. 184, note) states, a political pamphlet in the interests of the democratic party (on which the monarchy was based), and tries to clear Caesar from the charge of being implicated in the Catilinarian conspiracy, and collaterally performing the same service for C. Antonius, the uncle of the triumvir.
Cf. Cat. 49, ‘Sed isdem temporibus Q. Catulus et C. Piso neque pretio neque gratia Ciceronem inpellere potuere, uti per Allobroges aut alium indicem C. Caesar falso nominaretur. Nam uterque cum illo gravis inimicitias exercebant ... Sed ubi consulem ad tantum facinus inpellere nequeunt,’ etc. (Cf. also Caesar’s speech in Cat. 51.)
Cat. 59, ‘At ex altera parte C. Antonius pedibus aeger, quod proelio adesse nequibat, M. Petreio legato exercitum permittit.’ Dion Cassius, xxxvii. 39, on the other hand, says that this was a pretence, Antonius being unwilling to fight against his old confederate.
2. Bellum Iugurthinum. (So in MSS. and Quint. iii. 8, 9.)