The or is a history of the conspiracy of Catilina during the consulship of Cicero, B. C. 63. The introduction to this history, which some critics admire, is only a feeble and rhetorical attempt to act the philosopher and moralist. The history, however, is valuable; and the charge that the historian has underrated the services of Cicero, is not maintainable. He would have damaged Cicero more in the opinion of the admirers of Cicero, at least, by not writing the history at all. Sallustius was a living spectator of the events which he describes, and considering that he was not a friend of Cicero, and was a partizan of Caesar, he wrote with fairness. The speeches which he has inserted in his history are certainly his own composition; but we may assume that Caesar's speech was extant, and that he gave the substance of it. If be wrote the history after Caesar's death, which is probable, that may explain why he had the bad taste to put his own composition in the place of Caesar's genuine oration. Cato's speech on the same occasion was taken down by short-hand writers (Plut. Cato Minor, 100.23); and Sallustius of course had it in his hands; but still he wrote one himself (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. iii. p. 174). He showed his ignorance of the true value of history, and his vanity too in not recording a speech of Cato. Constantius Felicius Durantinus, in his has stated the facts which Sallustius either purposely or carelessly omitted in his history.

The or contains the history of the war of the Romans against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, which began B. C. 111, and continued until B. C. 106. It is likely enough that Sallustius was led to write this work from having resided in Africa, and that he collected some materials there. He cites the Punic Books of King Hiempsal, as authority for his general geographical description (Jug. 100.17). The Jugurthine war has a philosophical introduction of the same stamp as that to the As a history of the campaign, the Jugurthine war is of no value: there is a total neglect of geographical precision, and apparently not a very strict regard to chronology. There is an oration in the Jugurthine war (100.30) of C. Memmius, tribunus plebis, against L. Calpurnius Bestia, which Sallustius declares to be the genuine speech of Memmius ; and it is, in fact, very different from those which he composed himself.

Sallustius, also, is said to have written which were dedicated to Lucullus, a son of L. Licinius Lucullus. The work is supposed to have comprised the period from the consulship of M. Aemilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus, B. C. 78, the year of Sulla's death, to the consulship of L. Vulcatius Tullus and M. Aemilius Lepidus, B. C. 66, the year in which Cicero was praetor. If this is so, Sallust began his history where that of Sisenna on the ended. This work is lost, with the exception of which have been collected and arranged. The fragments contain, among other things, several orations and letters. Some fragments belonging to the third book, and relating to the war with Spartacus, have been published from a Vatican MS. in the present century. (C. Sallustii Cr. Histor. lib. iii. Fragmenta e Cod. Vat. ed. ab Angelo Maio; edit. actior et emendatior, curante J. Th. Kreysig, Misen. 1830, 8vo.)

The ground for stating that the history of Sallustius began with B. C. 78, is the authority of the fragment in Donatus. (Res Populi Romani, &c). But Ausonius (Id. iv. ad Nepotem), seems to speak of some historical work which, as Le Clerc supposes, comprised a period of twelve years before the Tumultus Lepidi in B. C. 78. The commencement of such a work would coincide with B. C. 90, or the outbreak of the Social War, but the twelve years may be referred with equal probability to the period from B. C. 78 to B. C. 66. However, Sallust seems to have treated of the period of Sulla (Plutarch, Comparison of Sulla and Lysander, 100.3); though it is possible that this was done only by way of introduction to his historical work. The opusculum of Julius Exsuperantius may, with great probability, be assumed to be an epitome from the works of Sallustius. It commences with speaking of Metellus, the proconsul, taking C. Marius with him to the Jugurthine war; and it terminates with the capture of Calagurris in Spain (Calahorra) by Pompeius, the erection of his trophies on the Pyrenees, and his return to Rome from Spain, B. C. 72. It does not, therefore, comprise the whole of the period comprehended in the historical works of Sallustius; but Exsuperantius certainly followed some work which treated of the wars of Marius and Sulla.

It is, then, a probable conjecture that Sallustius treated the following subjects in their chronological order, which may not have been the order in which they were written: -- the war of Jugurtha ; the period from the commencement of the Marsic war, B. C. 90, to the death of Sulla, B. C. 78; the tumults caused by the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus upon the death of Sulla; the war of Sertorius, which ended B. C. 72; the Mithridatic war, which ended B. C. 63; and the conspiracy of Catiline. It was the fashion of Sallust to choose striking periods and events, and to write in piecemeal. Some grammarian probably arranged into the form of a history the works which comprised the period from B. C. 90 to B. C. 16, and this arrangement may have been made at a very early period. Plutarch (Lucullus, 10, 33) twice refers to Sallustius in his history of the campaigns of Lucullus in Asia. A passage in the of Plutarch (100.2) is apparently founded on a fragment, which is arranged in the third book. The fragments themselves are too meagre to allow the plan of the supposed history of Sallust to be reconstructed, though this has been attempted several times. But the more probable conclusion is that he did not write one history, but wrote several histories, all of which, except 'the and were arranged either by himself or others, under the title of Histories. Gellius frequently quotes the Histories of Sallustius.

Duae Epistolae de Re Publica ordinanda, which appear to be addressed to Caesar at the time when he was engaged in his Spanish campaign (B. C. 49) against Petreius and Afranius, and are attributed to Sallustius; but the opinions of critics on their authenticity are divided. The rhetorical character of them is in itself no ground for supposing that they are not by Sallustius.

The which is attributed to Cicero, is generally admitted to be the work of some rhetorician, the matter of which is the well-known hostility between the orator and the historian. The same opinion is generally maintained as to the , which is attributed to Sallustius; but Quintilianus (Inst. Or. 4.1. 68) quotes the very words of the commencement of this declamatio; and (9.3, 89) the words "O Romule Arpinas." (Declam. in Cic. 100.4.)