Gaius Asinius Pollio (consul 40 BC)

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Gaius Asinius Pollio (76/75 BC- 4 AD/5 AD) was a Roman orator, poet, playwright, literary critic and historian, whose contemporary history, although lost, provided much of the material for the historians Appian and Plutarch. Pollio was most famously a patron of Virgil and a friend of Horace and had poems dedicated to him by both men.[1]

Pollio was born into a leading Marrucine family. His grandfather Herius Asinius[www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0394.html] had been an Italian general in the Social War (sometimes called the Marsic War). He had a brother named Asinius Marrucinus, known only for his tasteless practical jokes.[2]

Pollio moved in the literary circle of Catullus, and entered public life in 56 by supporting the policy of Lentulus Spinther. In 54 BC he impeached unsuccessfully Gaius Porcius Cato (tribune) (a distant relative of the more famous Cato the younger). This Cato, in his tribunate (56 BC), had acted as the tool of the triumvirs - Pompey, Crassus and Caesar.

Despite his initial support of Lentulus Spinther, in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Pollio sided with Caesar. He was present as Caesar's legate at the Battle of Pharsalus (48 BC), and commanded against Sextus Pompeius in Spain, where he was at the time of Caesar's assassination.

Asinius Pollio subsequently threw in his lot with Mark Antony, one of the three new triumvirs in the Second Triumvirate. In the division of the provinces, Gaul fell to Antony, who entrusted Pollio with the administration of Gallia Transpadana (the part of Cisalpine Gaul between the Po and the Alps). In superintending the distribution of the Mantuan territory amongst the veterans, he used his influence to save from confiscation the property of the poet Virgil.

In 40 BC he helped to arrange the peace of Brundisium by which Octavian (Augustus) and Antony were for a time reconciled. In the same year Pollio entered upon his consulship, which had been promised him in 43 BC. It was at this time that Virgil addressed the famous fourth eclogue to him. Virgil, like other Romans, hoped that peace was at hand and looked forward to a Golden Age under Pollio's consulship.[3]

The following year Pollio conducted a successful campaign against the Parthini, an Illyrian people who adhered to Marcus Junius Brutus, and celebrated a triumph on October 25. The eighth eclogue of Virgil was addressed to Pollio while engaged in this campaign.

From the spoils of the war he constructed the first public library at Rome, in the Atrium Libertatis, also erected by him (Pliny, Nat. hist. xxxv. 10), which he adorned with statues of the most celebrated heroes. The library had Greek and Latin wings, and reportedly its establishment[4] posthumously fulfilled one of Caesar's ambitions. After his military and political successes, he appears to have retired into private life as a patron of literary figures and a writer. He was known as a severe literary critic, fond of an archaic style and purity.[5]

In retirement, Pollio organized literary readings where he encouraged authors to read their own work, and according to one site[6], he was the first Roman author to recite his own works. One of the most dramatic such readings brought the poet Virgil to the attention of the imperial family, when Virgil read from his work-in-progress the Aeneid, and flattered the imperial family by his portrayal of Aeneas, whom the Julii Caesares believed to be their direct patrilineal ancestor. As a result, Virgil was praised by Augustus himself. [7].

Pollio appears to have died in that year, perhaps immediately after the reading. He may have died in his villa at Tusculum. He was apparently a staunch republican, and thus held himself somewhat aloof from Augustus.

Pollio is also notable as the father of Gaius Asinius Gallus, the second husband of Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Augustus's partner, second-in-command and second son-in-law. The son Gallus and Vipsania had several sons together, of whom two were full consuls and a third was consul suffect.

Roman coinage of him can be seen at [8]

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• The article also includes some material from the 1964 Encyclopedia Britannica
• Article from the 1911 Encyclopedia containing more details about Pollio's life and works
• This controversial page includes some details about Asinius's political career, his building a public library, and his History.

[edit] Further Reading

• Louis H. Feldman, "Asinius Pollio and Herod's Sons", The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 35, No. 1 (1985), pp. 240-243. Article reading online requires subscription to

JSTOR.

• G. L. Hendrickson, "A Witticism of Asinius Pollio". The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1915), pp. 70-75 doi:10.2307/289520

Preceded by Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus and Lucius Antonius

Consul of the Roman Republic with Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus 40 BC

Succeeded by Gaius Calvisius Sabinus and Lucius Marcius Censorinus