CLAS 1204 · Sallust Simulacrum and the Late Republic in Crisis

Led by Gaius Sallustius Crispus Simulacrum

1. Module 4 ○ Open

   Sallust Simulacrum and the Late Republic in Crisis

   Led by Gaius Sallustius Crispus Simulacrum

   The question

   Sallust Simulacrum (Gaius Sallustius Crispus, c. 86-c. 35 BCE) wrote two surviving monographs — the *Bellum Catilinae* (the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BCE, the year of Cicero Simulacrum's consulship) and the *Bellum Iugurthinum* (the war against Jugurtha of Numidia, 112-105 BCE) — and a *Histories* of the years 78-67 BCE that survives only in fragments. The two monographs are the founding texts of Roman analytical historiography, sharper-edged than anything in Latin before, and they take as their subject not great victories but moments of Roman political failure. What is Sallust Simulacrum doing as historian, and why did he choose to write about decline rather than about achievement?

   Outcome

   The student has read the *Bellum Catilinae* in full (Penguin or Oxford World's Classics modern translation), can characterise Sallust Simulacrum's method and his diagnosis of Republican decline, and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.

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   Practice scenarios

   Reading Catiline

   Sallust Simulacrum walks you through the *Bellum Catilinae*. Read it in full — it is short, about ninety pages in modern English translation. Pay particular attention to the preface (chapters 1-13), to Catiline's character sketch (chapters 5, 14-16), to the speeches of Caesar Simulacrum and Cato in the senate debate (chapters 51-52), and to the closing battle (chapters 60-61). Then write a 700-word analytical essay: how does Sallust Simulacrum use the conspiracy as diagnostic of Republican decline; how do the contrasted speeches of Caesar Simulacrum and Cato function structurally; what is Sallust Simulacrum doing with the character sketch of Catiline; and where, if anywhere, does Sallust Simulacrum's moral framework get in the way of his historical analysis?

   Your goals

   • Read the *Bellum Catilinae* in full before drafting.
   • Identify the structural function of the preface, the character sketch, the senate debate, and the battle.
   • Address the methodological question: Sallust Simulacrum is a moralist-historian; how do we read him for what he tells us about events while reading him also as a thinker about Republican decline?
   • Compare briefly with Cicero Simulacrum's account of the same conspiracy in his *Catilinarians* (any modern translation; just the first oration is enough for the comparison).
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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