In the work on the war of Catiline, Sallust reveals especially the corruption of what was called the Roman nobility, by tracing the criminal designs of the conspirators to their sources--avarice, and the love of pleasure. In the history of the Jugurthine war, he particularly exposes and condemns the system of bribery in which the leading men of that age indulged; but on the other hand, he draws a pleasing contrast in describing the restoration of military discipline by Metullus and Marius. The difficult campaigns in the extensive and desert country of Numidia, and the wonderful events of this war, also deserve the attention of the reader; the more so, as the author has bestowed the greatest care on giving vivid descriptions of them. Among the writings of Sallust, which have been transmitted to us in manuscripts, and are printed in the larger editions of his works, there are two epistles addressed to Caesar, containing the author's opinions and advice regarding the new constitution to be given to the republic, after the defeat of the optimates and their faction by the dictator. They are written in his own peculiar style: the first contains excellent ideas and energetic exposures of the general defects and evils in the state, as well as plans for remedying them; the second adds some proposals regarding the courts of justice, and the composition of the senate, the utility and practicability of which appear somewhat doubtful. The authenticity of these epistles, therefore, is still a matter of uncertainty. Lastly, there are two Declamations (_declamationes_), the one purporting to be by M. Cicero against Sallust, and the other by Sallust against Cicero; but both are evidently unworthy of the character and style of the men whose names they bear, and are justly considered to be the production of some wretched rhetorician of the third or fourth century of the Christian era.[2] Such declaimers made use of all possible reports that were current respecting the moral weaknesses of the two men, and respecting an enmity between them, of which history knows nothing, and which is contradicted by our author himself, by the praise he bestows, in his 'Catilinarian War,' upon Cicero. [2] It has indeed been said that Quinctilian, who wrote about the year 95 after Christ, cites passages from these Declamations; but critical investigation has shown that these passages are interpolations, and are found only in the worst manuscripts.