The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline Quotes

“If a man is ambitious for power, he can have no better supporters than the poor: They are not worried about their own possessions, since they have none, and whatever will put something in their pockets is right and proper in their eyes." (Jugurthine War 86.3)”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“[T]he public interest, as is too frequently the case, was defeated by private influence.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“He remembered that envy is the concomitant of glory, and thus, the more renowned he became, the greater was his caution and circumspection.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Thus avarice, leagued with power, disturbed, violated, and wasted every thing, without moderation or restraint; disregarding alike reason and religion, and rushing headlong, as it were, to its own destruction. For whenever any arose among the nobility, who preferred true glory to unjust power, the state was immediately in a tumult, and civil discord spread with as much disturbance as attends a convulsion of the earth.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Caesar:) But to different persons, Conscript Fathers, different degrees of license are allowed. If those who pass a life sunk in obscurity, commit any error, through excessive anger, few become aware of it, for their fame is as limited as their fortune; but of those who live invested with extensive power, and in an exalted station, the whole world knows the proceedings. Thus in the highest position there is the least liberty of action; and it becomes us to indulge neither partiality nor aversion, but least of all animosity; for what in others is called resentment, is in the powerful termed violence and cruelty.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“The common people, meanwhile, who had at first, from a desire of change in the government, been too much inclined to war, having, on the discovery of the plot, altered their sentiments, began to execrate the projects of Catiline, to extol Cicero to the skies; and, as if rescued from slavery, to give proofs of joy and exultation. Other effects of war they expected as a gain rather than a loss; but the burning of the city they thought inhuman, outrageous, and fatal, especially to themselves, whose whole property consisted in their daily necessaries and the clothes which they wore.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Jugurtha:) Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“La hermosura, pues, las grandes riquezas, las fuerzas del cuerpo y demás cosas de esta clase pasan brevemente; pero las esclarecidas obras del ingenio son tan inmortales como el alma.
(La guerra de Jugurta)”
― Salustio, La conjuración de Catilina. La Guerra de Yugurta

“Honour is not bestowed upon merit.”
― Sallust , Sallust's History of the War Against Jugurtha, and of the Conspiracy of Catiline: With a Dictionary and Notes (Classic Reprint)

“But on the night preceding the day appointed for the conference, the Moor, after first assembling his friends, and then, on a change of mind, dismissing them, is reported to have had many anxious struggles with himself, disturbed alike in his thoughts and his gestures, which, even when he was silent, betrayed the secret agitation of his mind.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Indeed, Marius, as well at this as at other periods of the war, kept his men to their duty rather by the dread of shame than of severity; a course which many said was adopted from desire of popularity, but some thought it was because he took pleasure in toils to which he had been accustomed from his youth, and in exertions which other men call perfect miseries. The public interest, however, was served with as much efficiency and honor as it could have been under the most rigorous command.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“When Marius had achieved so important an enterprise, without any loss to his troops, he who was great and honored before became still greater and still more honored. All his undertakings, however ill-concerted, were regarded as proofs of superior ability; his soldiers, kept under mild discipline, and enriched with spoil, extolled him to the skies; the Numidians dreaded him as some thing more than human; and all, indeed, allies as well as enemies, believed that he was either possessed of supernatural power, or had all things directed for him by the will of the gods.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“The new recruits, in process of time, began to join in an encounter without fear; they saw that such as fled were taken prisoners or slain; that the bravest were the safest; that liberty, their country, and parents, are defended, and glory and riches acquired, by arms. Thus the new and old troops soon became as one body, and the courage of all was rendered equal.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Marius, when he found that the minds of the populace were excited, immediately freighted vessels with provisions, pay, arms, and other necessaries, and ordered Aulus Manlius, his lieutenant-general, to set sail with them. He himself, in the mean time, proceeded to enlist soldiers, not after the ancient method, or from the classes, but taking all that were willing to join him, and the greater part from the lowest ranks. Some said that this was done from a scarcity of better men, and others from the consul's desire to pay court to the poorer class, because it was by that order of men that he had been honored and promoted; and, indeed, to a man grasping at power, the most needy are the most serviceable, persons to whom their property (as they have none) is not an object of care, and to whom every thing lucrative appears honorable. Setting out, accordingly, for Africa, with a somewhat larger force than had been decreed, he arrived in a few days at Utica.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Marius:) My speech, they say, is inelegant; but that I have ever thought of little importance. Worth sufficiently displays itself; it is for my detractors to use studied language, that they may palliate base conduct by plausible words. Nor have I learned Greek; for I had no wish to acquire a tongue that adds nothing to the valor of those who teach it. But I have gained other accomplishments, such as are of the utmost benefit to a state; I have learned to strike down an enemy; to be vigilant at my post; to fear nothing but dishonor; to bear cold and heat with equal endurance; to sleep on the ground; and to sustain at the same time hunger and fatigue. And with such rules of conduct I shall stimulate my soldiers, not treating them with rigor and myself with indulgence, nor making their toils my glory. Such a mode of commanding is at once useful to the state, and becoming to a citizen. For to coerce your troops with severity, while you yourself live at ease, is to be a tyrant, not a general.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Compare now, my fellow-citizens, me, who am a new man, with those haughty nobles. What they have but heard or read, I have witnessed or performed. What they have learned from books, I have acquired in the field; and whether deeds or words are of greater estimation, it is for you to consider.

They despise my humbleness of birth; I contemn their imbecility. My condition is made an objection to me; their misconduct is a reproach to them. The circumstance of birth, indeed, I consider as one and the same to all; but think that he who best exerts himself is the noblest. And could it be inquired of the fathers, of Albinus and Bestia, whether they would rather be the parents of them or of me, what do you suppose that they would answer, but that they would wish the most deserving to be their offspring! If the patricians justly despise me, let them also despise their own ancestors, whose nobility, like mine, had its origin in merit. They envy me the honor that I have received; let them also envy me the toils, the abstinence, and the perils, by which I obtained that honor.

But they, men eaten up with pride, live as if they disdained all the distinctions that you can bestow, and yet sue for those distinctions as if they had lived so as to merit them. Yet those are assuredly deceived, who expect to enjoy, at the same time, things so incompatible as the pleasures of indolence and the rewards of honorable exertion.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Nor did the senate, though adverse to him, dare to refuse him any thing; the additions to the legions they had voted even with eagerness, because military service was thought to be unpopular with the multitude, and Marius seemed likely to lose either the means of warfare, or the favor of the people. But such expectations were entertained in vain, so ardent was the desire of going with Marius that had seized on almost all. Every one cherished the fancy that he should return home laden with spoil, crowned with victory, or attended with some similar good fortune.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“[A] war was easily begun, but discontinued with difficulty; that its commencement and conclusion were not dependent on the same party; that any one, even a coward, might commence hostilities, but that they could be broken off only when the conqueror thought proper ...”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Jugurtha inflamed the mind of Bocchus by observing "that the Romans were a lawless people, of insatiable covetousness, and the common enemies of mankind; that they had the same motive for making war on Bocchus as on himself and other nations, the lust of dominion; that all independent states were objects of hatred to them; at present, for instance, himself; a little before, the Carthaginians had been so, as well as king Perses; and that, in future, as any sovereign became conspicuous for his power, so would he assuredly be treated as an enemy by the Romans.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“[...] Metellus, who, by his exertions, had triumphed over every obstacle, over arms, deserts, seasons, and finally over Nature herself that controls all, nothing was impossible [...]”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“This taunt served only to rouse the feelings of Marius, as well for the honor at which he aimed, as against Metellus. He suffered himself to be actuated, therefore, by ambition and resentment, the worst of counselors. He omitted nothing henceforward, either in deeds or words, that could increase his own popularity. He allowed the soldiers, of whom he had the command in the winter quarters, more relaxation of discipline than he had ever granted them before. He talked of the war among the merchants, of whom there was a great number at Utica, censoriously with respect to Metellus, and vauntingly with regard to himself; saying "that if but half of the army were granted him, he would in a few days have Jugurtha in chains; but that the war was purposely protracted by the consul, because, being a man of vanity and regal pride, he was too fond of the delights of power." All these assertions appeared the more credible to the merchants, as, by the long continuance of the war, they had suffered in their fortunes; and to impatient minds no haste is sufficient.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“When Jugurtha, however, after being thus despoiled of arms, men and money, was summoned to appear in person at Tisidium, to await the consul's commands, he began again to change his mind, dreading, from a consciousness of guilt, the punishment due to his crimes. Having spent several days in hesitation, sometimes, from disgust at his ill success, believing any thing better than war, and sometimes considering with himself how grievous would be the fall from sovereignty to slavery, he at last determined, notwithstanding that he had lost so many and so valuable means of resistance, to commence hostilities anew.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“Nor was caution a sufficient protection to those who kept aloof; for darts, discharged from engines or by the hand, inflicted wounds on most of them; and thus the brave and the timid, though of unequal merit, were exposed to equal danger.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“The prevalence of parties among the people, and of factions in the senate, and of all evil practices attendant on them, had its origin at Rome, a few years before, during a period of tranquillity, and amid the abundance of all that mankind regarded as desirable. For, before the destruction of Carthage, the senate and people managed the affairs of the republic with mutual moderation and forbearance; there were no contests among the citizens for honor or ascendency; but the dread of an enemy kept the state in order. When that fear, however, was removed from their minds, licentiousness and pride, evils which prosperity loves to foster, immediately began to prevail; and thus peace, which they had so eagerly desired in adversity, proved, when they had obtained it, more grievous and fatal than adversity itself. The patricians carried their authority, and the people their liberty, to excess; every man took, snatched, and seized what he could. There was a complete division into two factions, and the republic was torn in pieces between them.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Jugurtha:) That it was a venal city, and would soon perish, if it could but find a purchaser!”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Memmius:) Of mutual trust, or concord, what hope is there? They wish to be lords, you desire to be free; they seek to inflict injury, you to repel it; they treat your allies as enemies, your enemies as allies. With feelings so opposite, can peace or friendship subsist between you? I warn, therefore, and exhort you, not to allow such enormous dishonesty to go unpunished. It is not an embezzlement of the public money that has been committed; nor is it a forcible extortion of money from your allies; offenses which, though great, are now, from their frequency, considered as nothing; but the authority of the senate, and your own power, have been sacrificed to the bitterest of enemies, and the public interest has been betrayed for money, both at home and abroad; and unless these misdeeds be investigated, and punishment be inflicted on the guilty, what remains for us but to live the slaves of those who committed them? For those who do what they will with impunity are undoubtedly kings.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Memmius:) But who are these that have thus taken the government into their hands? Men of the most abandoned character, of blood-stained hands, of insatiable avarice, of enormous guilt, and of matchless pride; men by whom integrity, reputation, public spirit, and indeed every thing, whether honorable or dishonorable, is converted to a means of gain.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“(Memmius:) But perhaps you are not yet weary of the tyranny of these men; perhaps these times please you less than those when kingdoms, provinces, laws, rights, the administration of justice, war and peace, and indeed every thing civil and religious, was in the hands of an oligarchy; while you, that is, the people of Rome, though unconquered by foreign enemies, and rulers of all nations around, were content with being allowed to live; for which of you had spirit to throw off your slavery?”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“[A]nything might be purchased at Rome.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline

“He was indeed, what is peculiarly difficult, both brave in action, and wise in counsel; qualities, of which the one, from forethought, generally produces fear, and the other, from confidence, rashness.”
― Sallust, The Jugurthine War / The Conspiracy of Catiline