=Sallust= (86-34 B.C.).—Another historian, whose name is as familiar as Cæsar’s to classical students, is Caius Sallustius Crispus, popularly known as Sallust. From his native town Amiternum, in the country of the Sabines, he came to Rome, ambitious of public honors, and gradually worked his way up to a seat in the senate. Alleged immorality, however, caused his expulsion from that body, and not until he had rendered important service to Cæsar in the civil war did he recover his good standing. Cæsar made him governor of the rich province of Numidia (46 B.C.), which Sallust pretty thoroughly plundered during his one year of office, returning to Rome with fabulous riches. It was fortunate for him that, when a Numidian commission arrived to prosecute him for extortion, his powerful patron interposed to save him from punishment. On the assassination of Cæsar, Sallust retired from public life and devoted part of his ill-gotten gains to the erection of a splendid mansion on one of the seven hills. It was surrounded by lovely pleasure-grounds, adorned with baths, statues, and other magnificent works of art, prominent among which, on exquisitely chiselled columns, rose a temple, paved in mosaic, and set off with Grecian marbles. “The Gardens of Sallust” were preferred by many of the Roman emperors to the imperial palace itself. Here or at his Tiburtine villa, our author, thoroughly convinced of the vanity of political honors, and filled with remorse for his youthful indiscretions, spent the last nine years of his life in the compilation of historical works which give us a high opinion of his abilities. His first effort was “the Conspiracy of Catiline,” the facts of which were vividly impressed upon his memory, since, when a student at Rome, he was a witness of its thrilling scenes. “The Jugurthine War,” which followed, treats of the struggle which the Roman people carried on with Jugurtha, king of Numidia. This unscrupulous prince had made his way to an undivided throne over the murdered bodies of his two cousins, allies of the Romans, securing impunity for a time by buying up the senate. Having, however, caused the assassination of another kinsman in the very streets of Rome, whither he had been summoned, on the pledge of the public faith, to expose those who had taken his bribes, he was ordered to quit Italy. It was on leaving the capital that Jugurtha, looking back, uttered those words so significant of the prevalent corruption: “O venal city and destined soon to perish, if you can but find a purchaser!”