Caius Sallustius Crispus, according to the statement of the ancient chronologer Hieronymus, was born in B. C. 86, at Amiternum, in the country of the Sabines (to the north-east of Rome), and died four years before the battle of Actium--that is, in B.C. 34 or 35. After having no doubt gone through a complete course of law and the art of oratory, he devoted himself to the service of the Roman republic at a time when Rome was internally divided by the struggle of the opposite factions of the _optimates_, or the aristocracy, and the _populares_, or the democratical party. The optimates supported the power of the senate, and of the nobility who prevailed in the senate; while the populares were exerting themselves to bring all public questions of importance before the popular assembly for decision, and resisted the influence of illustrious and powerful families, whose privileges, arising from birth and wealth, they attempted to destroy. Sallust belonged to the latter of these parties. In B.C. 52 he was tribune of the people, and took an active part in the disturbances which were caused at Rome in that year by the open struggles between Annius Milo, one of the optimates, who was canvassing for the consulship, and P. Clodius, who was trying to obtain the praetorship. Milo slew Clodius on a public road: he was accused by the populares, and defended by the optimates; but the judges, who could not allow such an act of open violence to escape unpunished, condemned, and sentenced him to exile. Pompey alone, who was then consul for the third time, was capable of restoring order and tranquillity. The position of a tribune of the people was a difficult one for Sallust: he was to some extent opposed to Milo, and consequently also to Cicero, who pleaded for Milo; but there exists a statement that he gave up his opposition; and he himself, in the introduction to his 'Catiline,' intimates that his honest endeavours for the good of the state drew upon him only ill-will and hatred. Two years later (B.C. 50), he was ejected from the senate by the censor Appius Claudius, one of the most zealous among the optimates. The other censor, L. Piso, did not protect either Sallust, or any of the others who shared the same fate with him, against this act of partiality. Rome was at that time governed by the most oppressive oligarchy, which was then mainly directed against Julius Caesar, who, as a reward for his brilliant achievements in extending the Roman dominion in Gaul, desired to be allowed to offer himself in his absence as a candidate for his second consulship--a desire which the people were willing to comply with, as it was based upon a law which had been passed some years before in favour of Caesar; but the optimates endeavoured in every way to oppose him, and drawing Pompey over to their side, they brought about a rupture between him and Caesar. Sallust was looked upon in the senate as a partisan of the latter, and this was the principal reason why he was