ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that Sallust uses the Histories’ characters as analogues for the figure of the historian in order to explore his anxieties about the continuing relevance of historiography. Sallust depicts some characters shaping their own “histories” and dismissing the need for historians to commemorate their deeds; others require the historian’s intervention to record their acts and rescue them from obscurity. Through these characters, Sallust problematizes the role of the historian as the protector of memoria rerum gestarum. This chapter shows the characters Sertorius and Pompey presenting challenges to the historian’s role; the figure of Spartacus, by contrast, suggests that historians are still necessary even under an autocratic regime.
