OUP (2014) h/b 361pp £65 (ISBN 9780199688197)
One of the earliest translations of classical works in English, B’s Jugurtha appeared in print around 1522. B. hopes that all readers ‘of whatsoever condicyon and degree … shall fynde both profyte and pleasure: if he rede it attentyfly’ but his main target audience are ‘gentylmen apt to attayne to glorious fame and honour by fayt of chyvalry’. The translation is of its time: for example ignarus belli (96.1 on the as yet inexperienced Sulla) becomes ‘ignorant of the dedes of chiualrie’. Hardly a post 20thC version! B. also adds explanatory material, incorporating ‘notes’ in the text. Thus nam is civis ex Latio erat (69.3 an explanation of why Turpilius could be executed) is translated beginning ‘if this Turpylius had ben a Romayn he shulde nat have ben put to deth’ and so on for 5 lines. Published for The Early English Text Society and thus directed at English scholars, this will also be a delight for classicists with an interest in Sallust and his reception. It lives up to B.’s wish to provide ‘profyte and pleasure.’
Alan Beale