[22] Magistrates--_Imperatorum_. "Understand all who govern states, whether in war or in peace." _Bernouf_. Sallust calls the consuls _imperatores_, c. 6. [23] Governments shifted from hand to hand--_aliud aliò ferri_. Evidently alluding to changes in government. [24] Less to the more deserving--_Ad optimum quemque à minus bono_. "From the less good to the best." [25] Even in agriculture, etc.--_Quae homines arant, navigant, aedificant, virtuti omnia parent_. Literally, _what men plow, sail_, etc. Sallust's meaning is, that agriculture, navigation, and architecture, though they may seem to be effected by mere bodily exertion, are as much the result of mental power as the highest of human pursuits. [26] Like travelers in a strange country--_Sicuti peregrinantes_. "Vivere nesciunt; igitur in vita quasi hospites sunt:" they know not how to use life, and are therefore, as it were, strangers in it. _Dietsch_. "_Peregrinantes_, qui, qua transeunt, nullum sui vestigium relinquunt;" they are as travelers who do nothing to leave any trace of their course. Pappaur. [27] Of these I hold the life and death in equal estimation--_Eorum ego vitam mortemque juxta aestimo_. I count them of the same value dead as alive, for they are honored in the one state as much as in the other. "Those who are devoted to the gratification of their appetites," as Sallust says, "let us regard as inferior animals, not as men; and some, indeed, not as living, but as dead animals." Seneca, Ep. lx. [28] III. Not without merit--_Haud absurdum_. I have borrowed this expression from Rose, to whom Muretus furnished "sua laude non caret." "The word _absurdus_ is often used by the Latins as an epithet for sounds disagreeable to the ear; but at length it came to be applied to any action unbecoming a rational being." _Kunhardt_. [29] Deeds must be adequately represented, etc.--_Facta dictis sunt exaequanda_. Most translators have regarded these words as signifying _that the subject must be equaled by the style_. But it is not of mere style that Sallust is speaking. "He means that the matter must be so represented by the words, that honorable actions may not be too much praised, and that dishonorable actions may not be too much blamed; and that the reader may at once understand what was done and how it was done." _Kunhardt_. [30] Every one hears with acquiescence, etc.--_Quae sibi--aequo animo accipit_, etc. This is taken from Thucydides, ii. 35. "For praises spoken of others are only endured so far as each one thinks that he is himself also capable of doing any of the things he hears; but that which exceeds their own capacity, men at once envy and disbelieve." Dale's Translation: Bohn's Classical Library. [31] Regards as fictitious and incredible--_Veluti ficta, pro falsis ducit. Ducit pro falsis_, he considers as false or incredible, _veluti ficta_, as if invented.