Sallust has been well served with English translations over the last two decades: by A.J. Woodman in the Penguin Classics series (2007), by W. Batstone for Oxford World's Classics (2010) and most recently by J. Ramsey's extensive revision of J.C. Rolfe's Loeb (2013). Among such august company, what is the rationale for a new translation of the Bellum Catilinae?
The distinctive focus of O.'s translation befits its place in the Princeton Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series and is expressed in its title: O. draws out the wider resonances of Sallust's narrative, framing the monograph as an influential and transferable meditation on conspiracy. Indeed, the introduction begins not with Rome (although the context is subsequently well covered, with useful background information for those new to the period as well as discussion of Sallust and his project), but with the persistent fear of conspiracy among the eighteenth-century founders of the United States. Taking Sallust's monograph as a practical handbook flattens out some of its most intriguing features (Does Sallust really offer a guide to saving a Republic? The monograph's famously ambiguous ending, together with the political upheaval within which Sallust was writing – only 20 years after the events described –, would seem to complicate this.), but at the same time succeeds in making the text accessible and appealing to a broad readership.
In keeping with the aims of the series, the translation aims primarily at a readable and flowing narrative, rather than at capturing the distinctiveness of Sallust's style: there are occasional gestures towards Sallust's characteristic brevitas and the sometimes elliptical qualities of his Latin, but the English is above all clear and compelling, with some memorable formulations (e.g. ‘unspeakable sex crimes’ for nefanda stupra at Cat. 15.1). O. also includes helpful notes, explicating elements of the historical context (e.g. senatus consultum ultimum), but also more literary qualities, such as Sallust's practice of including direct speeches. All of this is well judged to the volume's target audience. Also admirable is O.'s reference to recent scholarship on the text, highlighting some of the interpretative questions behind the narrative (e.g. on the so-called ‘first conspiracy’): the focus here is primarily historical rather than literary.
The translation is accompanied by a facing Latin text. This differs from the Loeb and L.D. Reynolds's OCT mostly in punctuation and orthography: O. regularises some of the older forms suggested by the manuscripts, and so prints for example cuius for Reynolds's and Ramsey's quoius and commotus for conmotus (although he does retain e.g. maxumum). There is no apparatus or (unlike Ramsey) indication of deviations from other editions; this does impede the usefulness of the text, and those intending to make more than casual reference to the Latin would be better served by the Loeb.
Nevertheless, the volume as a whole does an effective job of making accessible Sallust's work to a wider audience; the book's attractive presentation will encourage readers who might not otherwise have picked it up, and O.'s translation and notes will amply reward their interest.
