Sallust and Fortuna

Abstract

In his prologue to the Bellum Catilinae (and more cursorily in that to the Bellum Jugurthinum -hereafter cited as I), Sallust propounds some fairly complicated explanations of human action, and the possible ranges of human action. There has been much debate whether these passages are in themselves philosophically coherent, and whether they consort particularly well with the historical narrations which they introduce.' If this paper, which will deal only with the Bellum Catilinae (cited hereafter as C), succeeds in making its point, the latter question, regarding the relationship between its prologue and the body of the work, should be resolved, although the former question of philosophical consistency may not be. But answering even the second question will only be a by-product of my main purpose, which is to illustrate the way Sallust employs the term fortune, both to give his story a specialized political meaning and also to incorporate into it materials and judgments which subtly extend the purview of his narrative and the historical authority he claims forward and back from the ostensibly limited period of his study, 65-63 B.C., over the whole range of Roman history. Sallust, I hope to show, in the Bellum Catilinae is trying to say something of the greatest importance about the whole of Roman history, although he does so by means of a device that is perhaps deceptive as to its character, maybe too much so for the successful conveying of his message. A quick analysis of Sallust's theories of human action would run something like this: men may pass their lives either uncelebrated and unnoticed (in silence C 2.8), or engaged in activities which gain them notice and fame: the former are like beasts, seeking only the gratification of immediately felt needs (veluti pecora . . . ventri oboedientia, and dediti ventri atque somnoC. 1.1 and 2.8); while the latter can fall into one of two sub-groupings: (I) those who pursue gloria through physical actions (vi corporis and equivalent