or SALU'STIUS, belonged to a plebeian family, and was born B. C. 86, the year in which C. Marius died, at Amiternum, in the country of the Sabini. About the age of twenty-seven, as some say, though the time is uncertain, he obtained the quaestorship, and in B. C. 52 he was elected tribunus plebis, in the year in which Clodius was killed by Milo in a brawl. In B. C. 50 the censors Appius Claudius Pulcher and L. Calpurnius Piso ejected Sallustius from the senate (D. C. 40.63, and the note of Reimarus), on the ground, as some say, of his having been caught in the act of adultery with Fausta, the daughter of the dictator Sulla, and the wife of T. Annius Milo. It is said that the husband soundly whipped Sallustius, and only let him off on payment of a sum of money (Varro, quoted by Gellius, 17.18). Sallustius belonged to the faction of Caesar, and party spirit may have had some effect with the censors, for the imputation of an adulterous commerce, even if true, would hardly have been a sufficient ground at that time for a Nota Censoria. Sallustius, in his tribunate, made a violent attack upon Milo as to the affair of Clodius, but there may have been other grounds for his enmity, besides the supposed thrashing that he had received from Milo. The adulterous act, of course, was committed before B. C. 52; and Sallustius was elected a tribune after the affair. However this may be, upon his ejection from the senate, we hear no more of him for some time. The unknown author of the Declamatio in Sallustium (100.5, 6) merely hints that he may have gone to Caesar, who was then in Gallia; but such a hint from an unknown person is worth nothing.
In B. C. 47 Sallustius was praetor elect, and was thus restored to his rank. (Dion. Cass. 42.52.) He nearly lost his life in a mutiny of some of Caesar's troops in Campania, who had been led thither to pass over into Africa. (Appian, App. BC 2.92.) Sallustius carried the news of the uproar to Caesar at Rome, and was followed thither by the mutinous soldiers, whom Caesar pacified. Sallustius accompanied Caesar in his African war, B. C. 46 (Bell. Afric. 100.8, 34), and he was sent to the island Cercina (the Karkenna islands, on the coast of Tunis), to get supplies for Caesar, which he accomplished. Caesar left him in Africa as the governor of Numidia, in which capacity he is charged with having oppressed the people, and enriched himself by unjust means. (D. C. 43.9, and the note of Reimarus.) He was accused of maladministration before Caesar, but it does not appear that he was brought to trial. The charge is somewhat confirmed by the fact of his becoming immensely rich, as was shown by the expensive gardens which he formed (horti Sallustiani) on the Quirinalis. It is conjectured that the abusive attack of Lenaeus. a freedman of Pompeius Magnus, is the autithority for the scandalous tales against Sallustius (Sueton. De Illust. Grammat. 15); but it is not the only authority. Sallustius retired into privacy after he returned from Africa, and he passed quietly through the troublesome period after Caesar's death. He died B. C. 34, about four years before the battle of Actium. The story of his marrying Cicero's wife, Terentia, is improbable. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. vi. p. 693.)
The character of Sallustius has been the subject of much discussion among scholars, some of whom attempt to clear him of the scandalous imputations upon his memory. That a partizan, like Sallustius, and a rich man too, must have had many enemies, is agreeable to all experience; and of course he may have had detractors. But to attempt to decide on the real merits of his character, or the degree of his demerits, with such evidence as we have, is puerile industry. It is enough to remark that Dio Cassius always makes a man as bad as he can. That he devoted himself so busily to literature in his retirement is an argument in favour of the latter part of his life at least.
[G.L]