C. Sallustius Crispus was fifteen years junior to Cæsar: he was born at Amiternum[941] in the territory of the Sabines, A. U. C. 669, B. C. 85. He was a member of a plebeian family; but, having served the offices of tribune and quæstor, attained senatorial rank. In A. U. C. 704, he was expelled from the senate[942] by the censors Ap. Claudius Pulcher and L. Calpurnius Piso.[943] It is said that, although he was “a most severe censurer of the licentiousness of others,”[944] he was a profligate man himself, and that the scandal of an intrigue with Fausta, the daughter of Sulla and the wife of Milo, was the cause of his degradation. Through the influence of Cæsar, whose party he espoused, he was restored to his rank, and subsequently became prætor. He accompanied his patron in the African war, and was made governor of Numidia. Whilst in that capacity, he accumulated by rapacity and extortion enormous wealth,[945] which he lavished on expensive but tasteful luxury. The gardens on the Quirinal which bore his name were celebrated for their beauty; and beneath their alleys, and porticoes, surrounded by the choicest works of art, he avoided the tumultuous scenes of civil strife which ushered in the empire, and devoted his retirement to composing the historical records which survived him. His death took place B. C. 35. Those who have wished to defend the character of Sallust from the charges of immorality, to which allusion has been made, have attributed them to the groundless calumnies of Lenæus, a freedman of Cæsar’s great rival Pompey. It is not improbable that his faults may have been exaggerated by the malevolence of party-spirit in those factious times; but there are no sentiments in his works which can constitute a defence of him. If an historian is distinguished by a high moral tone of feeling, this quality cannot but show itself in his writings without intention or design. But in Sallust there is always an affectation and pretence of morality without the reality. His philosophical reflections at the commencement of the Jugurthine and Catilinarian wars are empty, cold, and heartless. There is a display of commonplace sentiment, and an expressed admiration of the old Roman virtue of bygone days, but no appearance of sincerity. The language may be pointed enough to produce an effect upon the ear, but the sentiments always fail to probe the recesses of the heart. Sallust lived in an immoral and corrupt age; and though, perhaps, he was not amongst the worst of his contemporaries, he had not sufficient strength of principle to resist the force of example and temptation.