POLLIO, C. AstNrcs, a politician, soldier. and author of considerable merit, and still more considerable reputation, was b. in Home 76 B.C., but belonged to a family of Bar rucinizu descent. His first ambition was to be an orator, and in his youth he seized every opportunity of hearing such men as Hortensius and Cicero. When civil war broke out between Caesar and Pompey. Pollio sided with the former, was present at the crossing of the Rubicon, and accompanied the great general in his rapid triumphal march through Italy. Ile joined Caesar in his expedition to Greece against Pompey, and took part in the decisive battle of Pharsalia, 48 B.C. At the time of Ciesar's assassination (Mar. 15, 44 me.). Pollio was governor of Hispania Ulterior (further Spain), and carrying on the war against Sextus Pompey. In the subsequent struggles, lie sided with the triumvirate (Anton•, Lepidus, and Octavian) against the oligarchic senate; and on the triumph of the former, was appointed administrator of transpadaneGaul, in which capacity he saved the property of the poet Virgil at Mantua from confiscation. After Antony and Octavian
had quarreled, it, was Pollio who effected their temporary reconciliation at Brundusium, 40 B.C. ; next year he conducted a successful campaign against the Parthini, a people of Elyria, and in consequence, obtained a triumph. After this event, however, he withdrew altogether from political life. He lived 18 years after the emperor Augustus, dying at his Tusculan villa, 4 A.D., in the 80th year of his age. Besides having a reputation for oratory, Pollio was celebrated as a historian, poet, and critic; and there seems little rea son to doubt that he was an author the loss of whose writings is to be regretted. His literary and political criticism of his contemporaries, in particular, appears to have been valuable. He also claims remembrance as a distinguished patron of men of letters, such as Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and as the founder of the first public library at Rome.