Evolution of Mentalities and Political Forms Reflected in the Work of Sallust – Platonic Influences

This paper aims to examine the concern of Roman society for political philosophy, especially the efforts of the Latin historian Sallust to harmonize Roman political reality, the result of an evolution for centuries, with political theoretical models, of Platonic inspiration. Political ideas expressed here are researched both in monographs on Sallust and the historian’s epistles addressed to Caesar. The author's identity problem is a starting point to argue that in the era of the collapsing Roman Republic there existed a general concern about the concept and the development of the state. The question of selecting a leader for the ideal society, as it is treated in Plato's Laws, remains open, and leaves room for further discussions; what is maintained in the corpus of texts studied is the option for a unique leader of monarchical type supported and assisted by a council of legislators. The two types of war, external and internal, also constitute a common topic of Plato's dialogue and the Roman thinker, yet having different weight in the works cited; Plato provides rules for a hypothetical war, while for the Roman state which is about to be reborn rules take into account both the consequences of civil war and political experience of the Roman hegemony.

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