Reviews for The Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline

The average rating for The Jugurthine War and the Conspiracy of Catiline based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-03-06 00:00:00 Karl Thiry This is one of those ancient works that arguably parallels our own times as some argue the things that happened within are evident in our own recent times and a sign of a possible crisis to come (though I would argue Rome went on for hundreds of years after the events in this book). This work focuses on two events during the later years of the Roman Republic: the Catiline Conspiracy (basically a young wanna be senator doesn't get elected and resents it and raises a secret army to take it yet gets caught yet some say the system was broken and saw him as a hero) and the Jugurthine War (a former ally of Rome, Jugurtha, rises to power against his cousins but one cousin gets away and flees to Rome for help and Rome realizes they'd rather have the biddable cousin than the tyrant king, Jugurtha). I'll break this up into sections but to reiterate some points going on in discussions all over the world some people draw parallels between the Catiline Conspiracy to the 1% Wall Street versus the 99%. And the Jugurthine War is about a former ally of Rome who rises to power in Numidia but then turns upon them using bribes and violence to control his territories while a cousin to this tyrant king begs Rome for assistance in securing his throne. So any parallels to former allies of ours or maybe a certain terrorist named Bin Laden who got military assistance from us back in the day and then turned against our country a la 9-11? Something to think about. Or, maybe go back further to Iran and Iraq before we went to war with the latter. Anyway, onward . . . JUGURTHINE WAR I still remember reading this book back in the day and recalling a a famous Jugurtha quote:   "Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit" ("a city for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should find a buyer," Sallust, Jug. 35.10). See, Jugurtha was known for bribing Roman officials (something he learned from his military service during the Punic Wars), including a former consul who had been involved in the murder trial of Gaius Gracchus (basically Gaius and his brother were seen as trying to shake up the Old Guard and were brutally murdered. Man does that sound like maybe the 99% arguments being made today?). The Roman heavy infantry were not used to hit and run tactics by Numidian light cavalry so they didn't accomplish much over the years. Later on a man named Gaius Marius was named Consul and he decided on a different tactic that involved having an ally-competitor turn Jugurtha over to Rome. The deposed tyrant was taken back to Rome for a victory march and then left to starve in one of Rome's great prisons. More important to Rome was the fact that Gaius Marius gained renown for ending the war and he and his quaestor, Cornelius Lucius Sulla, would both rise to power but then go to war against each other in the streets of Rome, resulting in a terror and invasion of the capitol by the Roman military. This would be the first time a Roman army occupied Rome which would set a dangerous precedent and later influence later Romans, including a young Julius Caesar. THE SECOND CATILINE CONSPIRACY To some people Catiline might seem like a rich kid who didn't get his way and then chose to raise an army with his allies and prepare to march on Rome. To the younger nobles he was somebody who was going to shake up the Old Guard and "refresh" the Senate but to the masses he was even more favored. Debt was at an all time high and Catiline promised to help with that problem and that endeared him to veterans of the Punic Wars who were in massive debt and/or struggling to maintain their diminished farms or protect them from foreclosure. Sounds like anything happening today maybe? Hmmm. Well, the short of it was that there was evidence of an enemy army being formed in Gaul by some of Catiline's backers but some of them bailed once Cicero and other senators found out about it and got ready. Catiline, to his credit as a true Roman noble, went into battle knowing he would die. His corpse was found far in the front and he went down as a martyr. Julius Caesar, who would later end the Roman Republic, may have been impacted by some of things Catiline tried to do. Ironically, he voted for clemency for Catiline but was shouted down. WRITING STYLE Sallust was the type of writer who liked to go off on tangents and talk about the moral decay of Rome in the later years of its Republican Period. Fortunately for me, I enjoyed some of his off tangents though I can see them really irritating some of his readers. At times the writing didn't flow well but that could be said of most of the ancient texts. These guys were writing for a certain niche of people back in the day and weren't trying to necessarily be super entertaining nor amusing so you have to take that in stride or look for an entertaining summary of this period elsewhere. Sallust was considered something of a dramatist at times in this work and he was biased towards the Old Guard. He was a big fan of Julius Caesar and when things didn't go well he retired to his villa to write his views of Roman Republican History. By the way, he was a horrible governor in Africa but that's another story. In the end say what you will of Sallust. Unlike most writers his works are being read over two thousand years later. How many writers of any type will receive that honor? Not many. People who want to read this work online can find it at Project Guttenberg. Those who don't want to plow through such a work but are interested in the latter tale might enjoy Steven Saylor's "Catilina's Riddle". WRITING STYLE: B minus to B; FOCUSES/DETAILS: B plus to A minus; THEMES THAT PARALLEL OUR TIMES: B plus to A minus; ACCURACY/OBJECTIVE VIEWPOINT: B; WHEN READ LAST: 2010 (third reading); OVERALL GRADE: B plus.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-25 00:00:00 Tina Jones Through some strange quirk, Sallust is one of the few ancient Roman historians whose two major works have come down to us more or less intact. I had read The Jugurthine War some eight years ago, and I finally decided to read The Conspiracy of Catiline. While Sallust is a journeyman historian, very much like Xenophon compared to Herodotus and Thucydides, he cannot give Tacitus or Livy much of a run for their sestercii. It is interesting to see Catiline from another viewpoint other than Cicero's, especially as Cicero had so much personally invested in exposing Catiline. He dined out on this reputation for many years until he gave a series of fourteen orations attacking Marc Antony, which is what sealed his doom. Like many ancient historians, Sallust liked to make up long speeches for his protagonists and antagonists. Particularly interesting in the case of The Conspiracy of Catiline is the contrast between how Julius Caesar would have dealt with the conspiracy compared to Cato's less accepting attitude. Unless you are a total history wonk like myself, I don't see too much to recommend about Sallust. Suetonius is ever so much more fun, even when he is making up stuff about the first twelve Caesars.