Nor is it always sufficient to have witnessed a great event in order to record it well, and with that fulness which converts it into a lesson in legislation, ethics, or politics. Now, the Roman annals had hitherto been chiefly a dry register of facts, what Lord Bolingbroke calls the _Nuntia Vetustatis_, or Gazette of Antiquity. A history properly so termed, and when considered as opposed to such productions, forms a complete series of transactions, accompanied by a deduction of their immediate and remote causes, and of the consequences by which they were attended,--all related, in their full extent, with such detail of circumstances as transports us back to the very time, makes us parties to the counsels, and actors, as it were, in the whole scene of affairs. It is then alone that history becomes the _magistra vitæ_; and in this sense
has been generally considered as the first among the Romans who merited the title of historian. This celebrated writer was born at Amiternum, in the territory of the Sabines, in the year 668. He received his education at Rome, and, in his early youth, appears to have been desirous to devote himself to literary pursuits. But it was not easy for one residing in the capital to escape the contagious desire of military or political distinction. At the age of twenty-seven, he obtained the situation of Quæstor, which entitled him to a seat in the Senate, and about six years afterwards he was elected Tribune of the people. While in this office, he attached himself to the fortunes of Cæsar, and along with one of his colleagues in the tribunate, conducted the prosecution against Milo for the murder of Clodius. In the year 704, he was excluded from the Senate, on pretext of immoral conduct, but more probably from the violence of the patrician party, to which he was opposed. Aulus Gellius, on the authority of Varro's treatise, _Pius aut de Pace_, informs us that he incurred this disgrace in consequence of being surprised in an intrigue with Fausta, the wife of Milo, by the husband, who made him be scourged by his slaves(185). It has been doubted, however, by modern critics, whether it was the historian Sallust who was thus detected and punished, or his nephew, Crispus Sallustius, to whom Horace has addressed the second ode of the second book. It seems, indeed, unlikely, that in such a corrupt age, an amour with a woman of Fausta's abandoned character, should have been the real cause of his expulsion from the Senate. After undergoing this ignominy, which, for the present, baffled all his hopes of preferment, he quitted Rome, and joined his patron, Cæsar, in Gaul. He continued to follow the fortunes of that commander, and, in particular bore a share in the expedition to Africa, where the scattered remains of Pompey's party had united. That region being finally subdued, Sallust was left by Cæsar as Prætor of Numidia; and about the same time he married Terentia, the divorced wife of Cicero. He remained only a year in his government, but during that period he enriched himself by despoiling the province. On his return to Rome, he was accused by the Numidians, whom he had plundered, but escaped with impunity, by means of the protection of Cæsar, and was quietly permitted to betake himself to a luxurious retirement with his ill-gotten wealth. He chose for his favourite retreat a villa at Tibur, which had belonged to Cæsar; and he also built a magnificent palace in the suburbs of Rome, surrounded by delightful pleasure-grounds, which were afterwards well known and celebrated by the name of the Gardens of Sallust. One front of this splendid mansion faced the street, where he constructed a spacious market-place, in which every article of luxury was sold in abundance. The other front looked to the gardens, which were contiguous to those of Lucullus, and occupied the valley between the extremities of the Quirinal and Pincian Hills(186). They lay, in the time of Sallust, immediately beyond the walls of Rome, but were included within the new wall of Aurelian. In them every beauty of nature, and every embellishment of art, that could delight or gratify the senses, seem to have been assembled. Umbrageous walks, open parterres, and cool porticos, displayed their various attractions. Amidst shrubs and flowers of every hue and odour, interspersed with statues of the most exquisite workmanship, pure streams of water preserved the verdure of the earth and the temperature of the air; and while, on the one hand, the distant prospect caught the eye, on the other, the close retreat invited to repose or meditation(187). These gardens included within their precincts the most magnificent baths, a temple to Venus, and a circus, which Sallust repaired and ornamented.