IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S "JUGURTHA": THE NARRATOR'S DEPICTION OF

ROME BEFORE 146 B.C.

Author(s): JACOB MILLER
Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 1 (MAY 2015), pp. 242-252
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43905652
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Classical Quarterly 65.1 242-252 © The Classical Association (2015) 242
doi: 1 0. 1 0 1 7/S00098388 14000688

IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S JUGURTHA : THE

NARRATOR'S DEPICTION OF ROME BEFORE 146 B.C.*

An examination of the idealized image of Rome before 146 b.c. constructed i

Jugurtha {Jug.) reveals that despite the narrator's own stated opinions, his dep
of it is perverse and unhistorical. The narrator's value judgements are unapp
his archaizing affected, his history plainly wrong: these are serious interpr
problems. Is this an attempt, as in the dialogues of Cicero, to re-educate the
intuitions of his day by means of a fictitious past? Perhaps; but narcological an
of the relevant sections suggests another solution, an extrapolation to the narratoria
sona of the technique of ironic subversion used in the speeches. The key to under
ing the depiction of Rome before 146 lies in the identification of political and hist
discourse and the consequent extension to the latter of the factionalization characte
of the former. The problematic aspects of the depiction of Rome before 146 em
the reader to articulate a critique of faction; the text needs to be surmounted
understood.
The narrator of the Jugurtha begins the monograph by establishing a non-sp
chronology. First, a series of gnomic statements about human nature. Second, he
duces the narrative present, marked with the ablative hac tempestate (3.1), characte
it negatively: public office is not associated with virtus , and does not even protect
who gain it by fraud (3.1). More gnomic statements follow (3.2-4.1); and the na
discusses his career and his choice to write history in the narrative present
Third, the narrator introduces the past (4.5), signalled by the temporal adverb
(4.7), which the narrator characterizes positively in contrast to the present: leading
zens, such as Q. Maximus and P. Scipio, were roused to virtue by images of their
tors (4.5). 1 After reflecting further on the contrast between the past and the prese
narrator introduces the main subject of the monograph: the Numidian War (5.1
therefore introduces two pasts in the preface, distant and recent.2 The Numidia

* I am very grateful to Dr Tim Rood and Dr Rhiannon Ash for comments on an earlier draft
paper. They are of course not responsible for the views that are expressed or the faults that r
There is some ambiguity about which Q. Maximus and P. Scipio are meant; J. Grethlein, '
quid ea memorem : the dialectical relation of res gestae and memoria rerum gestarum in S
Bellum Jugurthinum' CQ 56 (2006), 135-47, at 137, rightly notes the significance of the ambi
although the generals of the Second Punic War seem the most likely referents. On imagines , s
erally H. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford, 1996
briefly discusses this passage at 46.
Similarly, J. Grethlein and C. Krebs (edd.), Time and Narrative in Ancient Historiography
'Plupasť from Herodotus to Appian (Cambridge, 2012), 1 coin the term 'historian's plupasť
past completed prior to the past that the narrator focuses on'.

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 IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S JUGURTHA 243

the recent past, lies between the distant past and the present, both tem
ally; for a mid-point in a downward-sloping line must be lower than
The narrator thus intertwines the monograph's chronological framew
framework: morals have declined as time has progressed. Of cou
Jugurtha concerns the Numidian War; this paper, however, will cons
of Rome in that more distant past, which the narrator develops essenti
sion on the rise of factions at Rome (41-2).
In that digression, the narrator characterizes this distant past as har
but also as the apogee of the moral quality of Rome and the conco
In his view, ante Carthaginem deletam , the Romans placide modest
publicam tractabant, neque gloriae neque dominationis certamen
(41.2). This happy condition prevailed because metus hostilis in bonis
retinebat (41.2).3 The temporal boundaries of this distant past thu
the years before 146.4 Then, when formido disappeared, those qu
secundae promote arose, namely lascivia atque superbia (41.
that followed the Third Punic War (an otium that curiously inclu
chosen subject, the Numidian War) was asperius acerbiusque than
(41.4).6 Concluding his analysis, the narrator contends that civil
primům ex nobilitate reperti sunt qui veram gloriam iniustae poten
(41.10).
Some of the narrator's value judgements depart from what is normal or at least
expected.7 In this ideal period, there was metus (41.2), formido (41.3); and Romans
were in advorsis rebus (41.4). The Numidian War, however, when in the narrator's
view matters started to decline precipitously, was a time of res secundae (41.3),
when the nobility put true glory before unjust power (41.10). Given a choice between
fear and adversity on the one hand, or abundantia (41.1), res secundae , otium and lea-
ders who shunned unjust power on the other, the latter seems preferable; based on the
descriptions provided of the two, the denigration of the period of the Numidian War in
favour of the distant past is therefore intuitively strange. There are, however, some more
conventional choices: the time of the Numidian War has associated with it lascivia ,
superbia , as peritas, acer bitas, ' ducere , tra here, rapere ' (41.5) and avaritia (41.9).
Additionally, because the narrator uses the comparative form of asper and acer, these
qualities belong to the distant past as well, although to a lesser degree. More positively,
although the narrator significantly does not use the word concordia , clearly the distant

3 See D. Earl, The Political Thought of Sallust (Cambridge, 1961), 11-12 on bones artes ; A.W.
Lintott, 'Imperial expansion and moral decline in the Roman Republic', Historia 21 (1972), 626-
38 on metus hostilis.
4 Compare Cat. 10-12, where Sulla is the more important turning point.
See T.F. Scanlon, 'Textual geography in Sallust's "The War with Jugurtha'", Ramus 17 (1988),
138-75, at 149.
Echoed elsewhere: at Jug. 29, peace is achieved through dishonourable dealings.
Cf. C.S. Kraus, 'Jugurthine disorder', in C.S. Kraus (ed.), The Limits of Historiography: Genre
and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Leiden, 1999), 217-47, at 235.

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244 JACOB MILLER

past was a time of concord; this i

these qualities can be listed:

Pre- 146 Post- 146

metus hostilis (4 1 .2) abundantia (41.1)

formido (41.3) otium (4 1 . 1 , 4 1 .4)

advorsis rebus (41.4) res secundae (41.3)

asperitas (but less than post- 146) (41.4) lascivia (41.3)

acerbitas (but less than post- 146) (41.4) superbia (41.3)

concordia (implied by 41.2 but not stated) asperitas (more than pre- 146) (41.4)

bonis artibus (41.2) acerbitas (more than pre- 146) (41.4)

iniustae potentiae (41.10) ducere (41.5)

trahere (41.5)

rapere (41.5)

avaritia (41.9)

veram gloriam (41.9)

While the time of the Numidian W

ling - the distant past has only co
butes. Again the idealization of t
Numidian War seem counterintu
decline, the reader must prefe
under 'post- 146'. Surely life po
the two exceptions noted, the te
Latin. Compare the description
12.3), which use none of these te
(for example, boni mores , domi p
of Rome before 146 in the Jugurt
first monograph; indeed, the pos
cannot be paralleled in contempo
the narrator's thesis: is mortal f
vails? Is Jugurtha the hero of t
Hannibal he might have restored
the war, however, although they
concord, but rather stimulate M

8 Similarly Volux (105.3) and the Ga

effects. I distinguish conceptually m
58.2, 67.1, 92.9, 97.5, 106.6).

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 IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S JUGURTHA 245

Echoing the narrator's appeal to the morality of Rome before 146

style also recalls Cato.9 The rejection of contemporary language is mo
choice, however, since it is in contemporary language that the politi
narrator declares his disgust are expressed; he demonstrates by h
that even the language has become corrupted. Just as the solution to Ro
may be found in Rome before 146, so too can a better means of expr
the present is found wanting in comparison with the past. Similarly, th
ment of asperitas found in the digression is reflected stylistically, for
could describe many of the stylistic features of this monograph. The u
of Cato to idealize an age which he used to censure, however, suggests t
is not what he seems.
Later sources describe a second-century debate between Cato and Nasica about
whether Carthage ought to be destroyed.10 Cato thinks it must be destroyed; Nasica
argues that its presence provided the Romans with a salutary fear, which compelled
the Romans to live in harmony, while its destruction would cause a domestic crisis -
obviously a precursor to the metus hostilis thesis.11 Nasica' s opponent, however, was
the model for Sallust's narratorial voice, not just stylistically but morally. The fragments
of Cato' s speech Pro Rhodiensibus , for example, begin: Scio solere plerisque hominibus
rebus secundis atque prolixis atque prosperis animum excellere atque superbiam atque
ferociam augescere atque crescere }2 An obvious similarity, clearly more than termino-
logical; the ancients themselves connected the two personae.13 Two paradoxes arise:
first, the narrator's style comes from the man who used it to advocate the destruction
of Carthage, the act which in the narrator's analysis led to the great moral crisis.14
Second, an original partisan conflict, indeed from the supposed period of concord,
thus lies at the centre of the work, implicit in the choice of Cato and Nasica, two pol-
itical opponents, as sources for style and argument respectively.
Moreover, the portrayal of Rome before 146 as a golden age conflicts with the infor-
mation about that period known from other sources. The third decade of Livy contains
ample refutation, describing troubles domestic and foreign; fragments of Cato' s
speeches, all from before 146, show friction with the army (frr. 17-18 ORF), allegedly
horrendous crimes in the provinces (frr. 58-63 ORF), theft by provincial governors (frr.
154-5 ORF) and conspicuous lavishness (frr. 173-5 ORF).15 The lack of contemporary
sources from before the second century precludes pre-Catonian confutation; but even a
basic understanding of Republican history suffices to disprove the depiction of Rome
before 146 in the Jugurtha. More than counterintuitive, then, the depiction of Rome
before 146 is unhistorical. Sallust was not ignorant of these facts; he certainly knew
the evidence in Cato, whom he read extant. In the Catiline Sallust mentions the

9 See E. O'Gorman, 'The politics of Sallustian style', in J. Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek
and Roman Historiography (Oxford, 2007), 379-84; R. Syme, Sallust (Cambridge, 1964), 240-73;
D.S. Levene, 'Sallust's Catiline and Cato the Censor', CO 50 (2000), 170-91.
10 Florus 1.31.5; Appian, Pun. 69; Plut. Cat. Mai. 27; Diod. Sic. 34.33.3-6.
11 Earl (n. 3), 47-9; Syme (n. 9), 249.
Cato, frr. 163, 164 ORF ; Earl (n. 3), 45; Syme (n. 9), 1 16, 267-8. Compare also the beginning of
Cato' s Origines (Cic. Plane. 66) with Jug. 4.4; and if A. La Penna, 'Rapere, trahere: uno slogan di
Catone contra i ladri di stato?', in S. Boldrini and F. Della Corte (edd.), Filologia e forme letterarie:
studi offerti a Francesco della Corte , voi. 2 (Urbino, 1987), 103-10, is correct, Jug. 41.5 has a
Catonian slogan (' rapere trahere'); cf. Levene (n. 9), 179.
Suet. Aug. 86.3; Fronto, Ep. 4.3.2.
14 So Levene (n. 9), 177-80.
° Earl (n. 3), 40; cf. Syme (n. 9), 248.

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 246 JACOB MILLER

superbiam dominationemque of th
from the Jugurtha; even within th
the Orders (31.1 7), undercutting t
the Historiae , Sallust portrays this
tions earlier periods of discord (H
ing point (1.12, 1.1 6). 16 Sallust kn
the Jugurtha and so probably did
How does the reader explain the
narrative, and the reality?17 Ignor
remain: either (i) the author is kno
fictitious and morally non-intuiti
diction between story and discour
requires their elucidation.
The first explanation takes serio
preface, wherein the narrator pre
of the state. The narrator claims th
negotiis rei publicae venturum (4.
historical accomplishments used t
4.6). Considered as accurate statem
ducts of a literary persona distinct
an explanation for the portrayal
diagnosis for the ills of Rome: the
and the customs of the age; Roma
Sallust thus begins from the comm
maiores , were better than they w
an attempt to persuade his contem

16 Cf. Earl (n. 3), 41-47; Syme (n. 9),

the Beginning of History (Berkeley, 20
numbering.
Cf. now C. Champion, 'Historiographie patterns and historical obstacles in Polybius' Histories :
Marcellus, Flaminius and the Mamertine crisis', in B. Gibson and T. Harrison (edd.), Polybius and his
World: Essays in Memory of F. W. Walbank (Oxford, 2013), 143-57. Champion asks some of the
same questions of Polybius, noting also in that author a 'dissonant narrative tension ... when
Roman immoral behaviors occur in the period in which Rome was ostensibly at its height of political
and moral excellence' (p. 145). Compare especially Champion's three explanations for this tension:
'influences from political pressures applied by the senatorial aristocracy', Polybius' inability 'to rec-
oncile his commitment to painstaking accuracy and impartiality with his historiographie patterning',
and - closest to this paper's argument about Sallust - 'a subtle attempt to give voice to anti-Roman
sentiments among Polybius' Greek readership, offering subtexts that create a tension with and resist
the straightforward idea of Roman excellence' (p. 147). One wonders if there is any connection to be
made between this tension in Polybius and Sallust; or if, perhaps, any historical idealization will inev-
itably conflict with fact.
This claim alludes to the beginning of Cato' s Origines ( clarorum virorum atque magnorum non
minus oti quam negoti rationem exstare oportere ). See generally n. 12 on how the narrator's voice has
Cato as a model.
19 A view of the importance of history that would be echoed elsewhere: cf. (e.g.) Cicero's descrip-
tion of history in De oratore as the vita memoriae (2.36). In the Catiline (4.1-2), however, history is
described only as a bonum otium. It is useful to consider how the different narratorial personae serve
the Catiline and the Jugurtha.
20 Cf. Cat. 33.2, 51.4-6, 52.19-21, 52.30-2; Jug. 31.6, 85.12, 85.36-7, 85.21-5, wherein speakers
cite the maiores for particular, often conflicting, rhetorical purposes. On moral re-education, cf. M.
Comber and C. Balmaceda, Sallust: The War against Jugurtha (Oxford, 2009), 1 88-9.

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 IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S JUGURTHA 247

in the Jugurtha runs essentially: given that our ancestors fared better
the past adverse circumstances and fear of the enemy prevailed, we a
the opposite, and would fare better if we valued adverse circumstan
apparent unattractiveness of the terminology is thus not a problem bu
Compare Cicero's De re publica , wherein Scipio narrates the early h
focussing on the story of Romulus (2.4-20). When Scipio has finished, L
'es enim ita ingressus, ut, quae ipse reperias, tribuere aliis malis qua
Platonem Socrates, ipse fingere et illa de urbis situ revoces ad r
Romulo casu aut necessitate facta sunť (2.22). Laelius asserts here tha
of the life of Romulus is his invention, a vehicle for Scipio' s own vi
since Scipio and Laelius are characters in Cicero's dialogue (which its
tious discussion set in 129 b.c.), this narrative and subsequent inteijec
explicit statement by Cicero that he is creating a fictitious past t
thoughts on the commonwealth.21 Elsewhere in De re publica Cicero
persona the condition of the commonwealth, arguing that the men and
were what made Rome great (5.1), whereas in the present the morals
and unknown (5.2). Cicero constructs the morality of the past as an ide
in the case of Scipio 's Romulus an explicitly constructed past - and thu
contemporary mores and a solution to the crisis Cicero laments.22
Cicero's strategy in De re publica could be compared with Sallust's
Sallust knowingly creates a largely fictitious portrait of Rome befo
strate by contrast with contemporary life some of the moral proble
fact that, for example, there was not actually political concord befo
of Carthage is irrelevant, because Sallust's aim in describing this past
a scientific enquiry, but rather, as he says, to construct something of p
fellow citizens {Jug. 4.4). The unpleasantness of the terminology he use
period can be understood as an attempt to alter the standard Roman ter
and evaluation.23 Sallust relies upon the Roman commonplace that t

21 Cf. J.E.G. Zetzel, Cicero, De Re Publica: Selections (Cambridge, 1995

'Dialogue and irony in Cicero: reading De republica ', in A. Sharrock and
Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations (Oxford, 2000), 263-86;
and the invention of "literary" history', in U. Eigler, U. Gotter, N. Luraghi
Formen römischer Geschichtschreibung von den Anfänger bis Livius: Ga
Kontexte (Darmstadt, 2003), 196-212. Cicero wrote to his brother that a certain
he read an excerpt remarked that quae tam antiquis hominibus attribuerem, ea v
(QFr. 3.5.1). Cicero used this device anyway.
Cf. J.E.G. Zetzel, 'Looking backward: past and present in the late Roman
Knight Lecture, Pegasus 31 (1994), 20-32, at 32.
On this technique generally, see Q. Skinner, 'Some problems in the analysis o
and action', Political Theory 2.3 (1974), 277-303. Skinner focusses on the use a
these evaluative-descriptive terms (terms that simultaneously evaluate and descr
the English 'frugal'): 'It is essentially by manipulating this set of terms that any
establishing and altering its moral identity. It is by describing and thereby
courses of action as (say) courageous or honest, while describing and condemning
ous or disloyal, that we sustain our picture of the actions and states of affairs wh
disavow or to legitimate. This being so, the task of the innovating ideologist is
one. His concern, by definition, is to legitimate a new range of social actions wh
existing ways of applying the moral vocabulary prevailing in his society, are cur
some way untoward or illegitimate. His aim must therefore be to show that a nu
favorable evaluative-descriptive terms can somehow be applied to his apparently
he can somehow perform this trick, he can thereby hope to argue that the conde
which are otherwise liable to be applied to his actions can in consequence be

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 248 JACOB MILLER

than the present to attempt a reco

dent of Thucydides can be credited
by rhetoricians and politicians to
This more traditional explanation
and the intentions of Sallust himse
is problematic, beyond simply con
The second explanation elucidates
Irony, here meaning a narrator (or
technique available to a late Repub
notion of the poet as a divinely in
this rejection of poetic tradition is
devices that are subverted by the c
Hellenistic poetry would have been
of an ironic style might also have
Plato's dialogues, which Sallust imit
as they were by the Sceptics of th
Cicero treats ironically 'Scipio's' p
Most obviously, the patently differ
suggest Sallusťs awareness of liter
fatally for this explanation, is nev
this view have to be innovating, al
ating as well. The best comparandum
works share several features - for e
sion of important closing scenes35
Most importantly, the two works

24 Cf. Thuc. 3.82.4, imitated twice by

explicitly in Cat. 38.3-4.
See D. Konstan, Catullus ' Indictment
108.
26 See S. Goldhill, 'Framing and poly
25-52.
27 Compare Virgil's education in Hellenistic poetry; see W. Clausen, Virgil's Aeneid and the
Tradition of Hellenistic Poetry (Berkeley, 1987), 4-10. Syme (n. 9), 232 sees in Sallusťs geographical
digressions 'a recollection of the poets', remarking that during the Triumvirate, 'for others of the edu-
cated class who refused to fall back on farming and hunting or vegetate in an apathy dull or querulous,
various avocations offered: literature, scholarship, or the higher thought'.
28 P. Perrochat, Les modèles grecs de Salluste (Paris, 1949), 53-60.
29 Cicero, Acad. 1.46; Fox (n. 21), 267-8; J. Annas, 'Plato the Sceptic', in J.C. Klagge and N.D.
Smith (edd.), Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues (Oxford, 1992), 43-72.
See Kraus (n. 7), 244.
But cf. J. Marincola, 'Odysseus and the historians', Syllecta Classica 18 (2007), 1-79, at 56-66,
on Herodotus.
Compare also the technique of 'persona-directed humour' identified in satire by M. Plaza, The
Function of Humour in Roman Verse Satire: Laughing and Lying (Oxford, 2006), 167-256.
See J.E.G. Zetzel, 'Catullus, Ennius, and the poetics of allusion', ICS 8 (1983), 251-86; C. Due,
'Tragic history and barbarian speech in Sallusťs Jugurtha' HSCPh 100 (2000), 311-25, on the
resemblance of the laments of Ariadne and Adherbal (see Jug. 17.15-18).
34 Compare the wrong-footing of Catull. 64.116-17 (see R. Jenkyns, Three Classical Poets :
Sappho, Catullus and Juvenal [London, 1982], 123) with Jug. 4.9 (see Kraus [n. 7], 214); or the defla-
tionary effect of Catull. 64.265-6 at the end of the ecphrasis (see J.H. Gaisser, 'Threads in the laby-
rinth: competing views in Catullus 64', AJPh 116 [1995], 579-616, at 607) with Jug. 1 14.
35 D. Fowler, 'First thoughts on closure', MD 22 (1989), 75-122; G.B. Townend, 'The unstated
climax of Catullus 64', G&R 30 (1983), 21-30; D.S. Levene, 'Sallusťs Jugurtha: an "historical

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 IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S JUGURTHA 249

The narrator of Catullus 64 establishes a tripartite chronology: the gold

heroic age, in which most of the poem is set, are contrasted in the poem's e
narrative present.36 Here too the narrator idealizes the past and posits
the nimis optato saeculorum tempore (22) to the narrative present.37 Th
the golden age and the heroic age contained within the poem, however, re
the narrator's simplistic view; it seems, despite the narrator's comments, t
not much better than the present.38 Thus the narrator's value judgement
problematic than they seem at first glance; 'nostalgia and admiration f
old is undeniably present ... but the idealism is strongly qualified by a
the discordant, the destructive and the tragic'.39 Are the value judgements
of the Jugurtha undercut by his descriptions of the past as those of the narr
64 are by his? Such an interpretation would be extraordinaiy in a work of
where establishing and consolidating authority is normally paramount. If t
present in the Jugurtha - if the reader should reject or question the narrator
a good reason why on this one occasion a historian is undermining his
One possibility: it permits the reader to critique factionalized discourse
ing to join the narrator's side. When history has become a way to particip
of the commonwealth by other means than politics {Jug. 4), then the pro
of political discourse must also be extended to historical discourse. It is a t
tion: if politics is dangerously partisan, and history and politics are equiv
tory risks being partisan as well, a risk later voiced explicitly by the
Historiae (1.6). If the narrator of the Jugurtha is understood as a represen
tion, then the process of questioning the narrator would lead to the conclu
monograph has questionable rhetoric, it is because faction produces qu
oric. There would then be two ways to interpret the narrator's comments
of Rome: (i) a reader who failed to question the narrator would conclud
problematic; or (ii) a reader who did question the narrator would conclu
nalized history and rhetoric were problematic.40 In either case faction
is assailed. The central problem: how can a critique of faction escape b
as the product of a certain faction and thus invalid on its own terms?
the ironic juxtaposition of story and discourse permits the reader to artic
the problem with faction, a dominant concern of the work; far from
abrogate historical responsibility to some partisan politician or historia
encourages the reader to assume that responsibility.
This explanation finds support in the text. The treatment of the most
alistic speeches demonstrates an interpretative strategy that can be applied
as well, particularly significant since the speeches reflect prima facie s
rator's views and voice.41 For example, concordia , as seen above, p

fragment'", JRS 82 (1992), 53-70. Catullus omits the interruption of Discordia a

Peleus and Thetis, its most important scene in the epic cycle; Sallust has omitted J
Konstan (n. 25), 31; Feeney (n. 16), 123-7; but cf. Jenkyns (n. 34), 97.
37 See M.W. Janan, 'When the Lamp is Shattered': Desire and Narrative in Catullus (Carbondale
and Edwardsville, IL, 1994), 108, on the translation of nimis optato.
On this ironic, pessimistic interpretation, see L. Curran, 'Catullus 64 and the heroic age', YCIS 21
(1969) 171-92; J. Bramble, 'Structure and ambiguity in Catullus LXIV', PCPhS 16 (1970), 22-41;
and Konstan (n. 25).
39 Curran (n. 38), 181.
Cf. Gaisser (n. 34), 581: Catullus 64 needs a 'neoteric reader' to discern its subtleties.
41 Levene (n. 35), 64.

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 250 JACOB MILLER

part in the narrator's analysis of R

rator never uses the standard and
found on coinage and in political
order and the équités ), and honou
important to the digressions, and
not make his message clear by na
rator rejects the language of conte
dia is used only twice, both time
First, in the speech of Micipsa to
res crescunt, discordia maxumae
argument in miniature; strikingly,
unimpressive king, whose speech
sion: ad ea Iugurtha, tametsi reg
This noteworthy paraleptic rema
the speech as false43 - undercuts
is discredited. As C. Kraus has no
of regal insincerity. Jugurtha und
and good advice that the dying k
invention.'44 The same speech con
tri ?' (10.5), another straightforw
digressions and the main narrativ
between the Numidian brothers is
The word concordia appears for a
dem aut concordiae quae spes estT
notion of concordia and generally
narrator's historical analysis.46 N
attacks against the nobility, the p
mere rhetoric. Both times, then,
the lie to the pleading. The narrat
its use entirely to the politicians w
the preface; the calls for concordi
cloaked with a fine-sounding wor
important, why is the concept trea
Generally, as Ronald Syme notes,
self by allegations contrary to fact

42 T. Wiedemann, 'Sallust's Jugurtha

48-57.
43 Cf. Jug. 72.1, 89.1.
44 Kraus (n. 7), 238.
45 Compare Wiedemann (n. 42), 55. Micipsa' s speech resembles Cyrus' death-bed speech in
Xenophon's Cyropaedia (8.7.6-28, esp. 15: xívi yàp aXkņ àÔeÂxpòç ¿léyaç â>v orneo kclXòv cbç
àÔEÂxpco;); there the sentiments about fraternal concord are undercut when the reader recalls the sub-
sequent fraternal strife in the Persian royal house (cf. Hdt. 3.30). Is there a generic point being made?
See C.S. Kraus and A.J. Woodman, Latin Historians {Greece & Rome New Surveys in the
Classics 27: Oxford, 1997), 25.
Perhaps the brief and negative reference to L. Opimius (16.2), who built the temple of Concordia
to support his claim to be advancing concordia , is an oblique comment on its rhetorical manipulation.
Compare also the treatment of the word f actio in Sallust, described in R. Seager, ' F actio : some obser-
vations', JRS 62 (1972), 53-8.

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 IDEALIZATION AND IRONY IN SALLUST'S JUGURTHA 251

of understanding'.48 Syme calls this technique 'double demolition'; unf

does not list instances. I identify the following: (1) Catiline (Cat. 20), wh
list rhetoric is undercut by the narrator's description of his aims immediat
(21.2); (2) Scipio (Jug. 9.1): the joy Scipio imagines Micipsa feels about J
duct in Spain is undercut by the narrator's description of Micipsa' s motiv
him there (Jug. 7), and the prediction of Jugurtha's future favour in Rom
the Numidian War; (3) Micipsa, discussed above; (4) Memmius, discu
Marius (Jug. 85), whose description of his own conduct (85.15) is underc
rator's earlier description of his conduct (Jug. 64-5), and whose claim
Greek literature (85.32) are undercut by the speech's allusions to Plato;
(Hist. 1.55), whose self-portrayal as a liberator and whose attacks on
are deflated by his admission that he purchased proscribed goods (1
Philippus' later description of Lepidus (1.77); (7) Cotta (2.47), w
representation is undercut by his narratorial introduction (2.42) and Ma
acterization of him (3.48.8); (8) Pompey (2.98), whose letter is full of p
and violence;50 and (9) Mithridates (4.69.5, 4.69.17-21), whose assertio
have always been violent and imperialistic - a refusal to periodize Roman
flicts with the narrator's periodization of Roman history elsewhere in t
Considering his incontrovertible fondness for the ironic subversion of
not Sallust have employed 'double demolition' on the narrator of the Ju
ishing faction and narrator concomitantly?
These speeches within the Jugurtha are thus mises-en-abyme , and dem
the reader of how political and historical accounts serve their own particu
extrapolating this interpretative tactic and applying it to the narrator's o
reader arrives at this explanation; the tension between story and discourse,
the tension between speech and context, is resolved as an ironic critique
ing rhetorical exposition of history by more conventional historians an
the extent that these categories can be separated) as well as a critique of f
accords with the narrator's own analysis of what is ailing Rome. On this i
what looks to be a monologic work52 is dialogic - in a different way.
It is tempting to look at the historical context to see if it can shed any l
questions. The Jugurtha was written c. 40 b.c.53 That means Sallust was
the Triumvirs about Sulla and the time after Sulla'; it is therefore inc
should find in his works 'sharp political comment' that 'reflects Rome
of the Triumvirs'.54 Candour is not wont to flourish in such times. W
when men of Sallust' s class were being proscribed, does Sallust voi
views - and evade the usual dire consequences?55 Indeed the Jugurth

48 Syme (n. 9), 198-9.

49 Perrochat (n. 28), 54; see also Grethlein (n. 1), 140-3, on the similarities betwee
and the proem.
50 Cf. also Cat. 10.5, 38.3, 52.11.
51 Cf. A. Feldherr, ' Magna mihi copia est memoranda : modes of historiography in
Caesar and Cato (Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 51^)', in Grethlein and Krebs (n. 2
speeches of Cicero and Cato in the Catiline; and Grethlein and Krebs (n. 2), 9-1 1, on
significance of speeches' in historiography generally.
52 Levene (n. 35), 64.
Syme (n. 9), 219. See ibid., 214-39, for the full historical context.
54 Syme (n. 9), 213, 216, 217.
Cf. Syme (n. 9), 226: 'The historian's own survival, surmounting the hazards of
lution, enhanced his sense of isolation. His generation had been almost wiped out

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252 JACOB MILLER

seeming forthrightness with even

explanation: 'Birth often secured p
of the party of Marius and Cinna
wanted most, but money to pay t
The interpretation proposed in thi
ible with Syme' s - for Sallust's app
stances of the year 40, perhaps
defence.58 If challenged on the
times, Sallust or his defenders m
as literary construct, as a mean
Irony, by undercutting sincerit
they write. In 40 b.c., as in many o
ious criticisms of the mores of th
some distance between himself and
moments in Roman history surviv
Domitian - we might find other a
detachment into their works, aimi
bility of mitigation.
Syme began his monograph by ide
secondary literature, of which tw
itical pamphleteer';59 this article at
ing the second to the first and pl
process, it has proposed two altern
porary morality and Sallust the iro
makes better sense of the text? Sev
refute: (1) for us, and so a fortiori
before 146 is too obviously unhist
continuation of politics, not ma
important to the Jugurtha; (3) if
I have called a 'transitive relation'
quently uses irony to subvert the
tionalization is one of the primary
to make Sallust the ironist the be
unattainable. While this paper has
for the rest of the monograph, the
the Jugurtha seem clear. On any
readers to think carefully about
words, has been the point of this

Yale Law School JACOB MILLER

jacob.miller@yale.edu

56 As discussed above, in the text accompanying n. 30, and the work cited the
personae of the Jugurtha and the Catiline differ in important ways.
" Syme (n. 9), 235.
I thank the referee for CQ for suggesting these points.
w Syme (n. 9), 2.

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