A History of Roman Literature

by Harold North Fowler

The history of the Gallic war was published under the unassuming title of Commentarii, or “notes”; but such is the perfection of its simple style that no one ever thought of rewriting it.

The three books of Commentaries on the Civil War show the same qualities as those On the Gallic War, but in a less admirable degree. The Civil War. In one external matter they differ from the history of the Gallic War, for in the latter each book contains the account of a year’s campaign, while the story of the first year of the Civil War occupies two books. The historical interest of this work is at least as great as that of the books on the Gallic War, but it does not compete with them in literary merit, and contains some positive misstatements. Probably the work was written in haste and was never revised by its author. This supposition would account for some of its defects. It may have been prepared for publication by one of Cæsar’s officers, perhaps by one of those who undertook to furnish histories of the campaigns which Cæsar had left unrecorded.

Among those who continued Cæsar’s record of his wars, the best writer is Aulus Hirtius. He was one of Cæsar’s lieutenants in Gaul, and was sent by him to Rome as a trusted agent. In 49 B. C. he was with Cæsar in Rome. What share he had in the civil war is not known, but he himself says that he was not present in the Alexandrian and African wars. Continuations of Cæsar’s Commentaries. He was prætor, on Cæsar’s nomination, in 46 B. C., and was consul in 43 B. C., when he was killed in the battle of Mutina, fighting against Antony. The only work ascribed to him with certainty is the eighth book of the Commentaries on the Gallic War, in which he shows himself far inferior to Cæsar as a writer, but not without some ability. The book is well written, in a style evidently intended to resemble that of Cæsar. Whether the book on the Alexandrian War was written by Hirtius or by Gaius Oppius is uncertain. Oppius was a man of equestrian rank, a supporter and agent of Cæsar at Rome. After Cæsar’s death he attached himself to the party of Octavius, and urged Cicero to do the same. He appears not to have lived long after 44 B. C. The Alexandrian War is written in a style similar to that of the eighth book of the Gallic War. The books on the African War and the Spanish War are by unknown authors. The style of the first is tasteless and turgid, while that of the latter is hesitating and crabbed. These books possess a certain literary interest, because they show the immense difference between Cæsar’s literary ability and that of the average Roman of his day.

Cæsar’s inimitable Commentaries are the records of their author’s own deeds, written from the point of view of the chief actor in the events narrated. They are not the results of wide historical research, nor do they attempt to give the reader a broad general knowledge of the course of events, with all their causes and consequences. They are not, strictly speaking, history, but a masterly presentation of the material from which history is made. The earlier records of the past by Roman writers, such as Valerius Antias, Cornelius Sisenna, and others (see page [43]), were mere annals, deficient alike in careful research and literary finish. The first real historian of Rome was Sallust.

Gaius Sallustius Crispus was born of a plebeian family, at Amiternum, in the Sabine country, in 86 B. C. Sallust. At some unknown date he obtained the office of quæstor, and in 52 B. C. he was tribune. In the earlier part of his life he was dissolute, and he is said to have brought his father in sorrow to the grave. In 50 B. C. he was expelled from the senate by the censors Appius Claudius and Lucius Piso. In the following year he was reappointed quæstor by Cæsar and thus regained his place in the senate. In 48 B. C. he was in command of a legion in Illyria, in the year following he was sent by Cæsar to suppress a mutiny among the soldiers in Campania, and in 46 B. C. served as prætor in the African war. At the end of the year he was made proconsul of Numidia, where he enriched himself by plundering the province. He then bought a villa and gardens on the Quirinal, and devoted himself to historical writing until his death in 35 B. C.

Sallust’s works are The Conspiracy of Catiline, The Jugurthine War, and the Histories. Sallust’s works. The first two are preserved entire, but of the Histories, which treated of the events from 78 to 67 B. C., only fragments are preserved, in addition to four speeches and two letters, which were inserted in the narrative, but were collected and published for use in rhetorical teaching. The two letters to Cæsar and the speech against Cicero, published under the name of Sallust, are spurious.

In his writings Sallust appears as an opponent of the nobility and a champion of the popular party. Character of Sallust’s works. He depicts in glaring colors the corruption and greed of the senate, and describes in glowing terms the successes and virtues of the popular hero Marius. At times his political bias leads him even to distort the truth, though the distortion is not so great as to deprive his works of historical value. He is not content to state the bare facts of history, but exerts himself to depict the sentiments and motives underlying the actions of the chief persons about whom he writes, and even of mankind in general. He prefaces his narrative with introductions of a philosophical nature, sometimes not strictly relevant to the subject in hand. His style is rhetorical and piquant, and he uses many archaic words, chosen in great part from Cato’s works. He evidently imitates the style of Thucydides, and, like him, he introduces speeches and letters composed to suit the occasion on which they are supposed to have been delivered or written. These peculiarities give his works the interest of individuality, and have caused them to be much admired, and also severely criticised, in ancient and modern times. Some of the qualities of Sallust’s writing may appear in translations of a few brief extracts. The opening words of the Catiline are as follows:

All men, who desire to excel the other animals, ought to strive with all their power not to pass their lives in silence, like the cattle which nature has made prone and obedient to their appetite. But all our power is situated in the spirit and the body; our spirit is more for command, our body for obedience; the one we have in common with the gods, the other with the beasts; wherefore it seems to me more fitting to seek glory by the resources of the mind than by physical strength, and, since the life which we enjoy is itself brief, to make the memory of us as lasting as possible.[50]

His account of the terror at Rome when the greatness of the danger from the conspiracy of Catiline became known, shows his power of vivid description: