S a l l u s t i u s
     
        THE LIFE OF SALLUSTIUS

        THE WORK

        "ON THE GODS AND THE WORLD" by SALLUSTIUS
         


    L I F E   A N D   W O R K



    The identity of the author

       The identity of the author of On the Gods and the World is object of an ancient controversy. Already Tillemont, based on numerous passages of the Res Gestae by Ammiano Marcellino, had distinguished two personages who were legacies to the emperor Julian the Apostate to which could have been attributed with equal probability the paternity of the treaty.
       These are Flavius Sallustius and Saturninius Secundus Salustius. Both are famous also thanks to two honorable registrations found both in Rome that concur to know their cursus honorum (political careers). In particular from these registrations it is gained that Flavius Sallustius, original of Spain, was prefect of the pretorship of the Gaul from 361 until 363; Saturninius Secundus Salustius, born in Gaul, was named prefect of the pretorship of the East in the 361. Since there are sustained reasonings in favor of one or the other personage for the attribution of the treaty, the critics are equally divided in two.
       However the more recent studies, seems to justify with more convincing reasonings the attribution of the treaty to the prefect of the East, that is to Saturninius Secundus Salustius. It is the ideological affinity and the friendship between Saturnino Second Sallustius and the emperor Julian, from historical literary sources, that support the inclination for such attribution.


    The Work by Sallustius
       Sallustius was a Neoplatonic philosopher who flourished in the fourth century CE and was like his friend Julian the Emperor member of the school of Pergamon. It is said to have written the present work on On the Gods and The World for the benefit of the Emperor Julian. 
       Personage pertaining to the group of intimates of Julian the Emperor (nicknamed for spite "the Apostate" by the Christians). Sallustius, the author of this short but dense treaty evidently resolved to trace somewhat of a "catechism of Paganism ", one formulation concise - but exhausting and incontrovertible - of the truth that supports the Greco-Roman religion. 
       If therefore the written formulation becomes part of a historical moment towards 363 CE (the vain restoration attempt of Paganism from Julian), it contributes to reveal the remarkable cultural knowledge, such it is the lucidity and the value of the short but important job, that it can still today be read with advantage by those who want to know that tradition better. 
       The anagogic interpretation of the myth, the foundations of the ritual, the metaphysic principles, the ethic formulations, the particular vision of the world of what all that has been convenient to call "Paganism" - parades in front of the eyes of the precise and agile reader a slowly expositive narrative of rare clarity, tricky in its apparent simplicity. 
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    Links:
     

  • On the Gods and the World at the Hellene Paganism page
  • On the Gods and the World by Platonis Sallustius...
  • The Dei Et Mundo MSS by Sheik Sebir
  • Dei Et Mundo by Sallustius reviewed by Al Shaiyk Sebir 
  • Sallustius' On the Universe and the Gods Lecture Notes

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     Copyright ©1998-1999 Roy George