Iug. 5, ‘Bellum scripturus sum, quod populus Romanus cum Iugurtha rege Numidarum gessit, primum quia magnum et atrox variaque victoria fuit, dehinc quia tunc primum superbiae nobilitatis obviam itum est.’
The object of the book is to give a picture of the low state of the oligarchical government (cf. Iug. 8, ‘Romae omnia venalia esse’), and to glorify Marius, the chief of the democratic party.
Of his sources, Sallust mentions Sisenna (Iug. 95) for information about Sulla, and native authorities for African ethnography.
Iug. 17, ‘Sed qui mortales initio Africam habuerint, quique postea adcesserint, aut quo modo inter se permixti sint ... uti ex libris Punicis, qui regis Hiempsalis dicebantur, interpretatum nobis est ... dicam.’
Sallust probably also used the memoirs of Scaurus, Sulla, and Catulus.
3. Historiae.—This work dealt with the events from B.C. 78 to 67. Cf. Ausonius, p. 264 (ed. Peiper),
‘Ab Lepido et Catulo iam res et tempora Romae
orsus his senos seriem conecto per annos.’
There is no reference in the fragments to any event after B.C. 67. The book took up the history where Sisenna had left off, B.C. 78. Cf. i. frag. 1 (ed. Maurenbrecher), ‘Res populi Romani M. Lepido Q. Catulo coss. ac deinde militiae et domi gestas composui.’
Four speeches and two letters from the Histories have been preserved in a collection of Sallustian speeches and letters made for rhetorical purposes, probably in the second century A.D. Besides these there are considerable fragments, chiefly from Books ii. and iii. We may conclude from Iug. 95, ‘neque enim alio loco de Sullae rebus dicturi sumus,’ that the career of Sulla was not treated of in the Histories. He is, however, repeatedly mentioned.
Two works are falsely attributed to Sallust: