Sallust

Sallust appears in Kyle’s notes on John Quincy Adams as one of the ancient historians at the “curricular core” of the era’s education for citizenship. The highlight names him alongside Cicero, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Thucydides, describing “the classics” not as a discrete subject like geography or history “but rather a lens through which to examine and understand the life around you.” In this frame, Sallust is part of the classical canon that shaped Adams’s republican intellect.

Context: Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus, 86–35 BC) was a Roman historian whose surviving works — The Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jugurthine War — were prized for their terse moralizing style and their analysis of political corruption and the decline of the Roman Republic.

Where this appears

• John Quincy Adams — listed among the ancient historians (Cicero, Tacitus, Plutarch, Thucydides) forming the classical core of education for citizenship.