SOURCE: Kraus, C. S., and A. J. Woodman. “Sallust.” In Latin Historians, pp. 10-50. Oxford.: Oxford University Press, 1997.

In the following excerpt, Kraus and Woodman examine Sallust's Historiae, focusing on three elements that stand out: the author's preface regarding his profession, his character studies, and his descriptions of foreign lands and people.

‘In these diverse ways, the lost masterpiece becomes palpable—content, architecture, and tone.’—‘[I]n my judgement the most learned and acute scholars have often been over-confident in delineating the scope of lost histories and the qualities of their authors.’¹

So two eminent ancient historians on the problems of interpreting a fragmentary text such as the Historiae. Sallust's last work has come down to us in various ways: four speeches and two letters were excerpted, probably in the imperial period, and have their own manuscript tradition; there are a very few manuscript and papyrus fragments of...