Princeton University Press is putting its best foot forward by using an old foot. The press’s ongoing collection entitled “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers” has a new addition with “How to Stop a Conspiracy: An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic.”
Josiah Osgood, professor and chair of classics at Georgetown University, has written a new translation of the ancient work and one that is easily accessible to modern readers. Then again, that’s the whole point.
The book is a new translation of Sallust’s great work “The War with Catiline” about the Catiline Conspiracy. The conspiracy involves the patrician and politician Lucius Sergius Catilina, who, after two electoral defeats for the Roman consul, decided a coup was the only other alternative. The story involves several famous ancient Roman figures, like Marcus Tullius Cicero, Julius Caesar, and Marcus Porcius Cato, or Cato the Younger….