SOURCE: Mazzolani, Lidia Storoni. “Sallust—On Harmony.” In Empire without End, translated by Joan McConnell and Mario Pei, pp. 39-83. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

In the following excerpt, Mazzolani surveys Sallust's political history and his views on government and human nature, noting the author's concern with Rome's moral and social decline and his longing for social harmony in the midst of discord.

… other enemies are within her walls, inside the very heart of Rome.

—Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 52. 35¹

Sallust chose recent events: the war against Jugurtha, the Numidian king who, after having murdered his two cousins, usurped the throne. The war lasted from 111 to 105 b.c. and was fought at the insistence of the left and against the judgment of the aristocrats in the Senate. After various failures by patrician commanders—except Metellus, who opened the way to victory for his successor—the conflict was finally decided in...