distinction.' Sallust here boasts of having obtained a seat in the
senate, and a high magistracy, at a time when it was a matter of
difficulty, and when even men of great merit were unable to gain
either. But at the same time he adds the remark, that afterwards many
undeserving persons were introduced into the senate, to
co-operate with whom was no honour. _Quae genera hominum_ refers to
the filling up of the senate with persons from the lower classes, and
even with such as were not free-born. This connivance at ambitious
upstarts, or rather this recklessness in filling up the vacancies in
the supreme council of Rome, was shown not only by the dictator J.
Caesar, but by his successors in power, M. Antony and Octavianus. In
consequence of such things, Sallust adds, it will be evident that he
was justified in withdrawing from public life.
[28] That is, the celebrated Fabius Maximus, surnamed Cunctator, who
distinguished himself by his prudence in the second Punic War.
P. Scipio is the elder Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal.
We might indeed imagine that Sallust is speaking of Scipio Africanus
the younger, but his being mentioned along with Fabius Maximus must
lead every reader to think of the elder Scipio.
[29] The images (_imagines_) of ancestors might indeed be statues, but
from the mention of wax in the next sentence, it is evident that we
have to understand the wax masks which constituted the greatest
ornament in the vestibule of the house of a noble family. The busts
(portraits) of those ancestors who had been invested with a curule
office were made of wax, and their descendants used these wax
portraits to dress up persons representing in public processions the
illustrious deceased, adorned with all the insignia of the offices
with which they had been invested. Such processions, especially at
public funerals (a real kind of masquerade), were intended to keep
alive in the memory of the Romans not only the names and exploits