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Sallust's Jugurtha: Concord, Discord, and the Digressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Thomas Wiedemann
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Extract

The current fashion for emphasizing ambiguities and discontinuities in literary texts should have found Sallust's writings congenial. The Catiline explores competing and contradictory claims to virtus, exemplified by Caesar, Cato, and Catiline himself, a paragon of ambiguity in contrast to the unproblematic Cicero. The Jugurthine Waris twice the length, with a more complicated structure and a wider range of material, including three formal digressions. A concern with the relationship between virtue and success, and with conflict between alternative virtues, is central to this monograph too; it concludes with a victory achieved not by years of military exertion but as the result of Jugurtha's treacherous betrayal to Sulla by Bocchus in contravention of all recognized moral principles (‘kinship, marriage, and a formal treaty’: cognationem, affinitatem, praeterea foedus intervenisse; cf. ‘deceit‘, composite dob, 111.2 and 4).

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 48 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

Notes

1. Scanlon, T. F., The Influence ofThucydid.es on Sallust (Heidelberg, 1980), pp. 175Google Scholar; 126–37; Büchner, K., DerAufbau von Sallusts Bellum Jugurlhinum (1956), p. 15Google Scholar emphasizes the structural role (‘die gliedernde Funktion’) of the first digression. Paul, G. M., A Historical Commentary on Sallust's Bellum Jugurlhinum (Liverpool, 1984)Google Scholar, has little specific to say on the literary functions of the digressions: p. 72 (A), p. 198 (C). L. Watkiss's student edition leaves the third digression out of his analysis completely: p. 19.

2. The four introductory chapters also display elements typical of a digression, ending with the standard digressory formula ‘nunc ad rem redeo’: see Wiedemann, T. E. J., LCM 4 (1979), 13–16Google Scholar and LCM 5.7 (07 1980), 147–9Google Scholar. They introduce a discrete section (chs. 5–16) containing material about the background to the war analogous to that given by Thucydides in his first book.

3. ‘Bellum scripturus sum quod populus Romanus cum Iugurtha rege Numidarum gessit, primum quia magnum et atrox variaque victoria fuit, dehinc quia tune primum superbiae nobilitatis obviam itum est. Quae contentio divina et humana cuncta permiscuit eoque vecordiae processit, ut studiis civilibus bellum atque vastitas Italiae finem faceret.’

4. On the epic greatness of the war about to be narrated, cf., e.g., Herodotus 1. 1, Thucydides 1. 23.1, Polybius 1. 13.11, Livy 21. 1.12 etc., and for verse writers, e.g., Vergil, Aeneid 7. 44 fGoogle Scholar: ‘maius opus moveo.’ We may also note that Sallust's account of the military operations of the final phase of the war, under Marius’ command, is introduced by the phrase ‘it seemed [to Marius] that it was time to undertake greater and more difficult things’: 89.3.

5. Piso ‘belonged to Caesar’ and intervened to prevent the removal from the senate of Caesar's supporter Curio: Cassius Dio 40. 63.3. For Caesar's reinstatement of those demoted by the censors, cf. Suetonius, , Divus Julius 41.1Google Scholar. On the historical Sallust, see Malitz, J., Ambilio Mala (Bonn, 1975)Google Scholar.

6. ‘Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maxumae dilabuntur’: 10.6. The importance of concord as a political slogan in the Ciceronian period was discussed by Hermann Strasburger in his 1931 doctoral thesis (Studien zur Allen Geschichle I [Hildesheim, 1982], 1 ff)Google Scholar.

7. Scanlon, pp. 131 ff.

8. Syme, , Sallust (Oxford, 1964), p. 152Google Scholar: ‘Greek erudition and fancies.’

9. Galinsky, G. Karl, The Herakles Theme (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar. At Athens, it was Theseus who became the founding hero of the ‘city’ and of political life: hence Theseus is associated with Herakles in some of his adventures, and takes over some of his attributes.

10. Wiedemann, , ‘Between men and beasts’, in Moxon, I. S., Smart, J. D., and Woodman, A. J. (edd.), Past Perspectives (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 189 ffGoogle Scholar.

11. Similar tales of races run to establish boundaries between cities may involve several runners, but not brothers. In the race between Clazomenae and Cyme, the plurality of runners is explained by the requirement to offer a sacrifice at the boundary: Diodorus 15. 1.