Author Description

Excerpt from Bellum, Catilinarum Et Jugurthinum, Et Optima Atque Accuratissima Gottlieb Cortii Editione Expressum: Or Sallust's History of Catiline's Conspiracy, and the War With Jugurtha, According to the Excellent and Accurate Edition of Gottlieb Cortius; With an English Translation as Literal as Possible, and Large Explanatory Notes Sallust, but none that I know of has ever attempted a literal one. Whether this be owing to an apprehension, that a literal version is a dress too mean and sordid for such a great historian, or to the difficulty of the task, (for difficult it is, as any one, by trying to translate but two or three chapters in this manner, will soon be convinced of, ) or whether it has been thought, that Sallust was not to be read by boys, till they had gone through a good many other authors, and acquired a con siderable skill in the language, and that then a free translation would serve their purpose: which of all these, or whether any of them, be the true reason why we have not hitherto had a literal translation of this author, I shall not pretend to deter mine. But as he is an author commonly taught in schools, I cannot but think it a piece of good service done the public, to accommodate him, as much as possible, to the capacity of youth: and it is with this view I have made out the following translation; which is not, I acknowledge, precisely or strictly literal in every sentence; and indeed it was impossible it could be so; for the Latin idiom differs so widely from the English, and particularly in Sallust, whose Latin is truly pure and classical, that a greatlmany sentences cannot be translated literally, and at the same time such a measure of justness and propriety in the style preserved, as the English may bear a reading, and not appear absolutely stiff and barbarous. I may however affirm, that it is more literal, and consequently better adapted to the use of learners, than any translation of Sallust yet published: and in this I am supported