page_title: Sallust
section_title: Jugurthine War
hierarchical_section_title: Sallust / Works / Jugurthine War
caption_attribution_description: English: ca. 1490 manuscript of De bello Catilinae&#160;; De bello Iugurthino, originally credited to Sallust. MS Richardson 17, Houghton Library, Harvard University
context_page_description: Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust, was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Sallust was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines and was a popularis, an opponent of the old Roman aristocracy, throughout his career, and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. Sallust is the earliest known Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which Catiline's War, The Jugurthine War, and the Histories are still extant. Sallust was primarily influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great wealth from his governorship of Africa.
context_section_description: Sallust's Jugurthine War is a monograph recording the war against Jugurtha in Numidia from c. 112 BC to 105 BC. Its true value lies in the introduction of Marius and Sulla to the Roman political scene and the beginning of their rivalry.  Sallust's time as governor of Africa Nova ought to have let the author develop a solid geographical and ethnographical background to the war; however, this is not evident in the monograph, despite a diversion on the subject, because Sallust's priority in the Jugurthine War, as with the Catiline Conspiracy, is to use history as a vehicle for his judgement on the slow destruction of Roman morality and politics.
caption: c. 1490 manuscript for De Bello Jugurthino
exif: {}