Sallust, Jugurtha

The text studied in Sallust’s Jugurtha is his account of Rome’s war against an African chieftain in the last decade of the second century BC. The war itself presented a serious threat to Rome’s interests in Africa which had been intense since the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC at the end of the Third Punic War. Sallust’s pamphlet gives a military and political history of the conflict in which the Roman army was at first commanded by the general Metellus; he was superseded by Gauis Marius, the first of the military dynasts of the late Republic, who defeated Jugurtha and brought the war to a successful conclusion.

Sallust’s account is of interest for more than the factual details of the war. It is one of the most important historiographical documents of the late Roman Republic, written as it was in the 40s BC, when its author had experienced personal success and failure in a political career conducted in the death-throes of the Republican system of government. Sallust comments both explicitly and implicitly on the corruption of the senatorial governing class and charts, in the rise of Gaius Marius, the growing personal power of a general and politician who was the first of the series of the leaders, which later included Pompey and Caesar, who were to bring the Republic to an end.

Candidates are required to comment on gobbets set in Latin but are not required to translate Latin in the examination paper.