257 



SALIH-BEN BAHLEH. 



SALLtfSTIUS. 



brilliant success in Paris, and not only made the reputation of the 

 author, but added nearly 20,000 francs to his fortune. He afterwards 

 brought out at different theatres many operas, among which his 

 ' Tarare,' or ' Axus, Hoi d'Ormus,' and ' La Grotta di Trofonio,' were 

 the most popular, and are now best known. Ho died at Vienna in 

 1823. Salieri was a kind of rival of Mozart, and, strange to relate, his 

 music was much preferred by the court and fashionable circles of 

 Vienna to that of the greatest dramatic composer that then or has ever 

 since lived. 



SALIH-BEN BAHLEH (called by Abulfaraj, ' Hist. Dynast.,' p. 154, 

 SALIH-BEN NAHLEH), an eminent Indian physician, who came to Irak 

 and practised at Baghdad in the time of Haroun-al-Rashid, who reigned 

 from A.H. 170 to 193 (A.D. 786 to 808). "He was distinguished," says 

 Ibn Abi Osaibiah, Oioun Al-Amba fi Tabacdt Al-Atebba ('Fontes 

 llelationurn de Classibus Medicorum,' cap. xii., sec. 7), " amongst the 

 learned men of India, well skilled in their methods of medical treat- 

 ment, and had power and influence in the promotion of science." He 

 acquired great reputation by discovering that Ibrahim-Ben Salih, the 

 cousin of the kalif, whom Jabril-Ben Bachtishua had pronounced to 

 be dead, was only apparently so ; of which event the same author gives 

 a curious and circumstantial account. It appears that he first went 

 alone into the room where Ibrahim lay, and immediately there was 

 " hesrd a sound as of one striking the body with the palm of the hand." 

 Then the kalif and some others were admitted, and, in order to prove 

 that Ibrahim was alive, " Salih took out a needle that he had with 

 him, and thrust it in between the nail and the flesh of the thumb of 

 his left hand, when he immediately plucked away his hand and drew 

 it towards his body." He then ordered that his burial clothes should 

 be taken off him, and that he should be washed till the scent of the 

 haniit (the scent that is mixed for dead bodies) was removed ; after 

 which he called for some 'kundus,' and blew some of it up his nose. 

 In about ten minutes his body began to move ; then he sneezed, and 

 sat up in his bed, supposing that he had been asleep, and complaining 

 only that he had been bitten by a dog in the thumb, and that he still 

 felt the pain, at the same time showing the thumb into which Salih 

 had thrust the needle. Ibrahim lived a long time after this circum- 

 stance, and married the Princess Alabbasah, daughter of Almahadi, and 

 obtained the government of Egypt and Palestine, and died in Egypt. 



With respect to the kundus, we are told in the ' Kamus ' that " it 

 is the root of a plant which is yellow inside and black out. It operates 

 as an emetic and a purging medicine, and clears away the riugworm. 

 When it is reduced to powder and blown up the noae, it causes sneezing 

 and enlightens the weary eyes, and stops blindness." See Avicenna 

 ('Canon,' lib. ii., tract 2,*cap. 137, p. 280, ed. Venet., 1564), where a 

 description of its medical properties is given. Sprengel (' Comment. 

 in Dioscor. de Mater. Med.,' lib. ii., cap. 192) supposes it to be the same 

 as the Greek ffrpdvOiov, on which there is a chapter in Dioscorides 

 (loco cit.), and which he identifies with the Saponaria officinalis, or 

 soapwort. 



SALI'-NAS, FRANCISCUS, a learned musical theorist, was born in 

 1613 at Burgos, the capital of Old Castile, of which city his father was 

 quaestor, or treasurer. Blind from his birth, he had recourse to the 

 study of music, an art to which his deprivation naturally led him. In 

 this his progress was, as is usual in such cases, rapid, and he became 

 a superior organist. While yet a boy he was instructed in Latin by a 

 young woman famous for her knowledge of that language. His success 

 in it led to his being entered at the University of Salamanca, where he 

 applied most assiduously to the Greek language, as well as to philo- 

 sophy. He then commenced reading the Greek authors on the science 

 of music, with whose writings he made himself thoroughly acquainted, 

 commenting on them in an equally learned and ingenious manner, and 

 correcting errors not before detected, but seen and admitted on his 

 pointing them out in his great work, ' De Musica,' &c., a treatise in 

 seven books, published at Salamanca in 1677. The first book of this 

 is on musical ratios ; the second on musical intervals ; the third is a 

 clear description of the various ancient genera ; and the fourth is on 

 the diapason and octave, and on the doctrines of Pythagoras, Aris- 

 toxenus, Ptolemy, &c. The remaining three books chiefly relate to 

 rhythm and the feet of the Greek and Roman versification. 



Salinas died, according to Thuanus, in 1690. He was highly esteemed 

 by Pope Paul IV., who created him abbot of St. Pancratio, in the 

 kingdom of Naples. A full and clear analysis of his work is given by 

 Sir John Hawkins (' History of Music,' iii. 123), to which Dr. Burney 

 has made some interesting additions in the third volume (p. 290) of 

 his 'History.' 



SALLU'STIUS, or SAL'USTIUS, with his full name CAIUS 

 SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, was born in B.C. 86, in the seventh consul- 

 ship of Marius, at Amiternum, a town in the country of the Sabines, 

 near the sources of the Aternus. He was of a plebeian family ; but 

 his parents seem to have been in affluent circumstances. He received 

 instruction from the grammarian Atteius Philologiis, who is said to 

 have supplied him with an epitome of Roman history, from which he 

 might choose subjects for his own composition. (Suet., ' De 111. 

 Gramm.,' c. 10.) The year in which he obtained the qutestorship is 

 not known, but he was tribune of the plebs in B.C. 52, in which year 

 Clodius was killed by Milo. 



Sallust was a strong opponent of the aristocratical party, and 

 accordingly in his tribuneship took an active part in the proceedings 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. V. 



instituted against Milo. (Aaconius, in ' Ciceron. Milon.,' pp. 38, 45, 49, 

 50, 51, od. Orelli.) In B.C. 50, he was expelled from the senate by the 

 censors Appius Claudius and Piao (Dion, xl. 63), in consequence, it is 

 said, of his immoral life; but there is no good authority for this state- 

 ment of the grounds of his expulsion, while we know that Appius 

 Claudius belonged to the Pompeian party, and that Sallust only 

 shared the general fate of all Caesar's friends. After his expulsion 

 from the senate, Sallust seems to have repaired to Caeaar'a camp in 

 Gaul, and to have accompanied him in his invasion of Italy. According 

 to some accounts he was made quaestor again after the battle of Phar- 

 salia (B.C. 48) ; but we know for certain that he was praetor in the 

 following year (B.C. 47), and was present at the mutiny of Caesar's 

 troops in Campania, on which occasion he narrowly escaped with his 

 life. (Dion. xlii. 52.) He accompanied Caesar the same year into 

 Africa, where he was actively employed in the war (Hirt., ' De BelL 

 Afric.,' c. 8, 34), and when Caesar quitted Africa in the following year 

 (B.C. 46), he left Sallust governor of the province (Hirt, Ibid., c. 97), 

 where, according to Dion Cassiua (xliii. 9), he acquired immense 

 wealth by the plunder of the country. On his return home, Sallust 

 built the famous palace at Rome, which was afterwards used by the 

 emperors, and was not destroyed till the time of Alaric. About this 

 time he is said to have married Terentia, the divorced wife of Cicero. 

 He died, B.C. 34, four years before the battle of Actium. 



The moral character of Sallust has been drawn in the darkest 

 colours by many writers. He has been accused of the most unbounded 

 profligacy, which has been represented as the more inexcusable on 

 account of the praises he has bestowed in bis works upon virtue and 

 temperance. These accusations however do not rest upon any sufficient 

 authority, unless we except the tale told by Varro, that Sallust was 

 detected in adultery with Mile's wife, and severely punished by the 

 husband (Aul. Gell., xvii. 18), to which circumstance the words of 

 Horace (' Sat.,' i. 2, 41), " ille flagellis ad mortem cassis," refer, 

 according to one of the ancient scholiasts. 



Sallust was a strong party-man. He thoroughly despised and hated 

 the aristocratical party, and took no pains to conceal his opinion. He 

 had designated Pompey, the leader of the aristocracy, as a man " oris 

 improbi, animo inverecundo," and accordingly it was only to be 

 expected that his own character should be attacked and traduced in 

 every possible manner. Lenaeus, the freedman of Pompey, wrote a 

 work expressly against Sallust (Suet., 'De 111. Gramm.,' 15); and a 

 rhetorician under the early emperors, when it had become the fashion 

 to praise the old Pompeian party, wrote a declamation against the 

 character of Sallust, which is still extant, and falsely ascribed to 

 Cicero. That Sallust was not better than his contemporaries may 

 easily be believed, and there seems no reason for doubting the state- 

 ment of Dion Cassius, that he followed the example of his contempo- 

 raries in plundering the province of which he was governor. 



Sallust wrote a history of Catiline's conspiracy, and of the war with 

 Jugurtha, and also a general history of Roman affairs from the death 

 of Sulla (B.C. 78) to the appointment of Pompey to the command of 

 the Mitbridatic war (B.C. 67). The two first works have come down 

 to us entire ; but of the latter we have only fragments ; and its loss is 

 the more to be regretted as it contained an account of one of the most 

 important periods of Roman history, respecting which our information 

 is very meagre and unsatisfactory. It was written in five or six books, 

 addressed to Lucullus, and appears to have contained an introduction 

 in which an account was given of the civil wars between Sulla and 

 Marius. It connected his histories of the Jugurthine war and the 

 Catilinarian conspiracy. The only fragments of it of any length are 

 four orations and two letters, which are characterised by Sallust'a 

 usual style. 



The merits of Sallust, both as an historian and a philosopher, have 

 been rated very low by many modern critics. The objections which 

 have been made to the moral reflections and dissertations in Sallust's 

 writings as unsuitable to the nature of historical compositions, have 

 arisen from a want of due attention to the object which the historian 

 had in view. This does not appear to have been so much the narration 

 of the particular events which he chose as the subjects of his history, 

 as the elucidation of certain great political facts. In his ' Jugurtha ' 

 his object was to show the venality and total want of principle in the 

 aristocratical party, and how both their private and public profligacy 

 at length deprived them of the power which they had possessed since 

 the time of the Gracchi. In his 'Catiline ' he had the same object to a 

 certain extent in view, though here it was not to show how the vices 

 of the aristocratical party occasioned their loss of power, but rather to 

 describe the consequences to which those vices had at length led; 

 for it must be remembered that Catiline and his associates had been 

 brought up in the school of Sulla, and belonged to the aristocracy. 



In estimating the value of Sallust's writings, it should also be borne 

 in mind that the Romans possessed no works worthy of the name of 

 histories before his time. Preceding writers merely narrated events 

 according to the order of the years in which they happened, without 

 any attempt to trace the causes and results of the events which they 

 recorded. Sallust studiously avoided the annalistic style of his prede- 

 cessors, and appears to have made Thucydides his model, to whom he 

 is sometimes compared by the ancients themselves. The fastidious 

 critics of the Augustan age objected to the use of the antiquated 

 words and expressions which Sallust sometimes employed (Suet., ' De 



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