C. Crispus, a celebrated Latin historian, was born of a plebeian family of Amiternum, a city of the Sabines, b.c. 86, the same year that Marius died. We can have no doubt that the cultivation of his mental powers must have been carefully attended to, though this does not seem to have prevented him from falling into all the extravagances and dissipation of a profligate age. His intrigue with Fausta, daughter of Sulla, and wife of Milo, became known to her husband, and was punished in a way which made the two parties irreconcilable enemies. Sallust became quaestor at the age of twenty-seven, and tribune of the people in the year b.c. 52. His profligacy, however, became so notorious, that the censors, Appius Claudius and L. Piso, b.c. 50, found it necessary to remove him from the senate, though his removal has been ascribed by others to political reasons, as he was a warm supporter of Caesar. It is supposed that he at this time wrote his account of the conspiracy of Catiline. His absence from public affairs continued only for a short time, as we find him praetor, b.c. 47, when he accompanied Caesar to Africa; and after the battle of Thepsa, he was appointed to the province of Numidia, where he enriched himself by the most nefarious means. He returned to Rome with immense wealth; and after the murder of Caesar abstained from taking any part in public affairs. He again devoted himself to a life of pleasure, and constructed a magnificent palace on the Quirinal, in the midst of gardens which were afterwards known as the Horti Sallustiani. This palace was subsequently occupied by Vespasian, Nerva, and many other emperors, and was destroyed by fire when Rome was plundered by Alaric. According to Eusebius, Sallust was married to Terentia, wife of Cicero, and died n. c. 35, in the fifty-first year of his age, being not less distinguished for his talents than for his profligacy. Of his historical works the following remain: 1. Bellum Catilinarium, a history of the conspiracy of Catiline, b. c. 63, with a very beautiful introduction, in which he laments, with much apparent feeling, the corruption of the age, and the profligacy of his contemporaries; 2. Bellum Jugurthinum, a history of the wars carried on against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, which he was probably induced to write from his residence in that country; 3. Historiarum Libri Quinque, a work on the history of Rome, from the consulship of M. Emilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus, n. c. 78, to that of M. Emilius Lepidus and L. Volcatius Tullus, a. c. 66, with an introduction on the manners and government of Rome, and a short summary of the wars of Marius and Sulla. Of this work only a few fragments have been preserved. Some other works, however, have come down to us, which are ascribed to Sallust, though without sufficient reason: 1. Duas Orationes de Republica Ordinanda, addressed to Julius Cesar when he was proceeding against Petreius and Afranius, in Spain; and, 2. Declamatio in Ciceronem, which is alluded to by Quintilian. The character of Sallust as a historian stood high among the ancients, who regarded him as the rival of Thucydides, and in many points he was certainly the imitator of that writer. Like Thucydides, he endeavours to give the causes of the various events which he is narrating; and if he more frequently ascribes them to unworthy motives, we may readily discover the reason of this in the corruption of the age in which he lived. But they both show themselves profound thinkers, and intimately acquainted with the springs of human action. The first edition of the works of Sallust was published in Rome in 1470, and in Venice the same year; but since that time a variety of editions have appeared. The best is that of C. H. Frötscher, giving the notes and emendations of Cortius, three vols. Lips. 1830, 8vo. C. Sallustii Histor. iii. fragmenta e cod. Vatic. edita ab. Angelo Maio, editio auctior et emendatior, curante J. Th. Kreissig. Misen. 1830.