Sallust (87 BC - 35 BC) — Auction price
Sallust, or Gaius Sallustius Crispus, was an ancient Roman historian, a reformer of ancient historiography, who had a significant influence on Tacitus and other historians.
Sallust was one of the first Roman historians to introduce into historical works extended speeches of the main characters to better emphasise the peculiarities of their character and political orientation. He was also one of the first to cast a critical eye on the recent history of Rome. Minor passages of his main work, the Histories, have survived. More famous are two small historical monographs - "On the Conspiracy of Catiline" and "The Jugurthine War". The theoretical basis of the works of Sallust was the doctrine of moral decline, according to which the cause of the crisis of the Roman Republic was the departure from traditional virtues to the domination of ambition and greed.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is an American writer and author.
Hawthorne is a recognized short story writer and a master of allegorical and symbolic narrative. One of the first fiction writers in American literature, he is best known for his works The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of Seven Gables (1851). Hawthorne's artistic works are considered part of the American Romantic movement and, in particular, of so-called dark Romanticism, a popular mid-19th-century fascination with the irrational, the demonic, and the grotesque.