The Fragments of the Histories

...sagaciously interpreted the fragments preserved in codices, G. Linker1) Linker, "Attempted to restore the proem of the histories from the relics" (diss. Marburg. 1850), then in "Sitzungsber. d. Wien. Akad." 1854 (XIII). commented well especially on the first book of the histories, Wölfflin, who disputed learnedly on many things both elsewhere and in his review of the Dietschian edition,2) Philol. XVII (1861) p. 519. Hauler, who recently read, edited, and most acutely interpreted the new Orléans fragments, and finally, Henricus Jordan, whom we had vehemently hoped would undertake the business of restoring the entire work. Having long deserved well for the rest of Sallust's writings, after he had also learnedly discussed the events narrated in the histories and their fragments,3) Herm. V p. 396, XIV p. 634, ind. lect. Regim. in aest. 1887. he was already on the verge of approaching a new edition of the histories when he was snatched from us by a premature and tearful death.

Now, if we shall strive to restore the histories, it must be noted that we should not merely collect the fragments and arrange them in order, but we must investigate and gather all the memory of Sallust stored up in later writers. De Brosses led the way in this method of recovering Sallust, this is shown by Scaliger in his restitution of Eusebius and Suetonius by Reifferscheid, and Wilamowitz also seems to have had this in mind when he said:4) "Antigonos of Karystios" (1881) p. 5.

"If one first reconstructs in this way the content of Ephoros and Timaeos, Apollodoros 'on the gods', Aristophanes 'lexical terms', the Histories of Sallust, the Antiquities of Varro, then a new life will come into the work, many a ghost will be scared away, and the goals will be set higher, and knowledge will be able to penetrate into the depths of ancient science."

Wherefore, let us first discuss which matters were done at home and in the field in the years 78—66, and in what chronological order, and then how Sallust narrated them. In this regard, one must inquire into all the writers who dealt with these years, what sources they used, and then those parts of them that seem to have been excerpted from Sallust must be collected and arranged. Once this is done, the very words of Sallust, which, having been cited by name by a grammarian or writer...