concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tonguel; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart. These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterwards, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became rapacious and insupportable. XI. At first, however, it was ambition, rather than avarice2, that influenced the minds of men; a vice which approaches nearer to virtue than the other. For of glory, honour, and power, the worthy is as desirous as the worthless; but the one pursues them by just methods; the other, being destitute of honourable qualities, works with fraud and deceit. But avarice has merely money for its object, which no wise man has ever immoderately desired. It is a vice which, as if imbued with deadly poison, enervates whatever is manly in body or mind3. It is always unbounded and insatiable, and is abated neither by abundance nor by want. 1 To keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue] Aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in linguâ promptum, habere. Εχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Αΐδαο πύλῃσιν *Ος χ ̓ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθει ἐνὶ φρεσὶν, ἄλλο δὲ βάζει. Who dares think one thing, and another tell, 66 Il. ix., 313. 2 XI. At first, however, it was ambition, rather than avarice, &c.] Sed primò magis ambitio quàm avaritia animos hominum exercebat. Sallust has been accused of having made, in this passage, an assertion at variance with what he had said before (c. 10), Igitur primò pecuniæ, deinde imperii cupido, crevit, and it will be hard to prove that the accusation is not just. Sir H. Steuart, indeed endeavours to reconcile the passages by giving them the following "meaning," which, he says, 'seems perfectly evident:" "Although avarice was the first to make its appearance at Rome, yet, after both had had existence, it was ambition that, of the two vices, laid the stronger hold on the minds of men, and more speedily grew to an inordinate height." To me, however, it " seems perfectly evident" that the Latin can be made to yield no such "meaning." "How these passages agree," says Rupertus, "I do not understand; unless we suppose that Sallust, by the word primò, does not always signify order." 3 Enervates whatever is manly in body or mind] Corpus virilemque animum effeminat. That avarice weakens the mind, is generally admitted. But how does it weaken the body? The most satisfactory answer to this question is, in the But after Lucius Sylla, having recovered the government1 by force of arms, proceeded, after a fair commencement, to a pernicious termination, all became robbers and plunderers; some set their affections on houses, others on lands; his victorious troops knew neither restraint nor moderation, but inflicted on the citizens disgraceful and inhuman outrages. Their rapacity was increased by the circumstance that Sylla, in order to secure the attachment of the forces which he had commanded in Asia3, had treated them, contrary to the practice of our ancestors, with extraordinary indulgence, and exemption from discipline; and pleasant and luxurious quarters had easily, during seasons of idleness, enervated the minds of the soldiery. Then the armies of the Roman people first became habituated to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire statues, pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such objects alike in public edifices and private dwellings; to spoil temples; and to cast off respect for everything, sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly, when once they obtained the mastery, left nothing to the vanquished. Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would those of debauched habits use victory with moderation. XII. When wealth was once considered an honour, and glory, authority, and power attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was thought a disgrace, and a life of innoopinion of Aulus Gellius (iii., 1), that those who are intent on getting riches devote themselves to sedentary pursuits, as those of usurers and money-changers, neglecting all such exercises and employments as strengthen the body. There is, however, another explanation by Valerius Probus, given in the same chapter of Aulus Gellius, which perhaps is the true one; namely, that Sallust, by body and mind, intended merely to signify the whole man. 1 Having recovered the government] Receptâ republicâ. Having wrested it from the hands of Marius and his party. 2 All became robbers and plunderers] Rapere omnes, trahere. He means that there was a general indulgence in plunder among Sylla's party, and among all who, in whatever character, could profit by supporting it. Thus he says immediately afterwards, "neque modum neque modestiam victores habere." 3 Which he had commanded in Asia] Quem in Asiâ ductaverat. I have here deserted Cortius, who gives in Asiam, "into Asia," but this, as Bernouf justiy observes, is incompatible with the frequentative verb auctaverat. In public edifices and private dwellings] Privatim ac publicè. I have trans.ated this according to the notion of Bernouf. Others, as Dietsch and Pappaur, consider privatim as signifying each on his own account, and publicè, in the name of the Republic. C cence was regarded as a life of ill-nature1. From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride prevailed among the youth; they grew at once rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and coveted what was another's; they set at nought modesty and continence; they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off all consideration and self-restraint. It furnishes much matter for reflection2, after viewing our modern mansions and villas extended to the size of cities, to contemplate the temples which our ancestors, a most devout race of men, erected to the Gods. But our forefathers adorned the fanes of the deities with devotion, and their homes with their own glory, and took nothing from those whom they conquered but the power of doing harm; their descendants, on the contrary, the basest of mankind3, have even wrested from their allies, with the most flagrant injustice, whatever their brave and victorious ancestors had left to their vanquished enemies; as if the only use of power were to inflict injury. XIII. For why should I mention those displays of extravagance, which can be believed by none but those who have seen them; as that mountains have been levelled, and seas covered with edifices1, by many private citizens; men whom I consider to have made a sport of their wealth, since they were 1 XII. A life of innocence was regarded as a life of ill-nature] Innocentia pro malivolentiâ duci cœpit. "Whoever continued honest and upright, was considered by the unprincipled around him as their enemy; for a good man among the bad can never be regarded as of their party." Bernouf. 2 It furnishes much matter for reflection] Operæ pretium est. 3 Basest of mankind] Ignavissumi mortales. It is opposed to fortissumi viri, which follows, " Qui nec fortiter nec bene quidquam fecere." Cortius. XIII. Seas covered with edifices] Maria constructa esse. Contracta pisces æquora sentiunt, Jactis in altum molibus, &c. -The haughty lord, who lays Hor. Od., iii., 1. Francis. To have made a sport of their wealth] Quibus mihi videntur ludibrio fuisce impatient to squander disreputably what they might have enjoyed with honour. But the love of irregular gratification, open debauchery, and all kinds of luxury1, had spread abroad with no less force. Men forgot their sex; women threw off all the restraints of modesty. To gratify appetite, they sought for every kind of production by land and by sea; they slept before there was any inclination for sleep; they no longer waited to feel hunger, thirst, cold, or fatigue, but anticipated them all by luxurious indulgence. Such propensities drove the youth, when their patrimonies were exhausted, to criminal practices; for their minds, impregnated with evil habits, could not easily abstain from gratifying their passions, and were thus the more inordinately devoted in every way to rapacity and extravagance. XIV. In so populous and so corrupt a city, Catiline, as it was very easy to do, kept about him, like a body-guard, crowds of the unprincipled and desperate. For all those shameless, libertine, and profligate characters, who had dissipated their patrimonies by gamings, luxury, and sensuality; all who had contracted heavy debts, to purchase immunity for their crimes or offences; all assassins or sacrilegious persons from every quarter, convicted or dreading conviction for their evil deeds; all, besides, whom their tongue or their hand maintained by perjury or civil bloodshed; all, in fine, whom wickedness, poverty, or a guilty conscience disquieted, were divitiæ. "They spent their riches on objects which, in the judgment of men of sense, are ridiculous and contemptible." Cortius. 1 Luxury] Cultûs. "Deliciarum in victu, luxuries of the table; for we must be careful not to suppose that apparel is meant." Cortius. 2 Cold] Frigus. It is mentioned by Cortius that this word is wanting in one MS.; and the English reader may possibly wish that it were away altogether Cortius refers it to cool places built of stone, sometimes underground, to which the luxurious retired in the hot weather; and he cites Pliny, Ep. v., 6, who speaks of a cryptoporticus, a gallery from which the sun was excluded, almost as if it were underground, and which even in summer was cold nearly to freezing. He also refers to Ambros., Epist. xii., and Casaubon, ad Spartian. Adrian., c. x., p. 87. 3 XIV. Gaming] Manu. Gerlach, Dietsch, Kritzius, and all the recent editors, agree to interpret manu by gaming. Assassins] Parricida. "Not only he who had killed his father was called a parricide, but he who had killed any man; as is evident from a law of Numa Pompilius: If any one unlawfully and knowingly bring a free man to death, let him be a parricide." Festus sub voce Parrici. the associates and intimate friends of Catiline. And if any one, as yet of unblemished character, fell into his society, he was presently rendered, by daily intercourse and temptation, similar and equal to the rest. But it was the young whose acquaintance he chiefly courted; as their minds, ductile and unsettled from their age, were easily ensnared by his stratagems. For as the passions of each, according to his years, appeared excited, he furnished mistresses to some, bought horses and dogs for others, and spared, in a word, neither his purse nor his character, if he could but make them his devoted and trustworthy supporters. There were some, I know, who thought that the youth, who frequented the house of Catiline, were guilty of crimes against nature; but this report arose rather from other causes than from any evidence of the fact1. XV. Catiline, in his youth, had been guilty of many criminal connexions, with a virgin of noble birth2, with a priestess of Vesta3, and of many other offences of this nature, in defiance alike of law and religion. At last, when he was smitten with a passion for Aurelia Orestilla, in whom no good man, at any time of her life, commended anything but her beauty, it is confidently believed that because she hesitated Than from any evidence of the fact] Quàm quòd cuiquam id compertum foret. 2 XV. With a virgin of noble birth] Cum virgine nobili. Who this was is not known. The name may have been suppressed from respect to her family. If what is found in a fragment of Cicero be true, Catiline had an illicit connexion with some female, and afterwards married the daughter who was the fruit of the connexion: Ex eodem stupro et uxorem et filiam invenisti; Orat. in Tog. Cand. (Oration xvi., Ernesti's edit.) On which words Asconius Pedianus makes this comment: "Dicitur Catilinam adulterium commisisse cum eâ quæ ei postea socrus fuit, et ex eo stupro duxisse uxorem, cùm filia ejus esset. Hæc Lucceius quoque Catilinæ objecit in orationibus, quas in eum scripsit. Nomina harum mulierum nondum inveni." Plutarch, too (Life of Cicero, c. 10), says that Catiline was accused of having corrupted his own daughter. 3 With a priestess of Vesta] Cum sacerdote Vestæ. This priestess of Vesta was Fabia Terentia, sister to Terentia, Cicero's wife, whom Sallust, after she was divorced by Cicero, married. Clodius accused her, but she was acquitted, either because she was thought innocent, or because the interest of Catulus and others, who exerted themselves in her favour, procured her acquittal. See Orosius, vi., 3; the Oration of Cicero, quoted in the preceding note; and Asconius's commentary on it. Aurelia Orestilla] See c. 35. She was the sister or daughter, as De Brosses thinks, of Cneius Aurelius Orestis, who had been prætor, A U.c. 677. |