XII

POLLIO


We come finally to the two _Eclogues_ addressed to Asinius Pollio. This
remarkable man was only six years older than Vergil, but he was just old
enough to become a member of Caesar's staff, an experience that matured
men quickly. To Vergil he seemed to be a link with the last great
generation of the Republic. That Catullus had mentioned him gracefully
in a poem, and Cinna had written him a _propempticon_, that Caesar had
spoken to him on the fateful night at the Rubicon, and that he had been
one of Cicero's correspondents, placed him on a very high pedestal in
the eyes of the studious poet still groping his way. It may well be that
Gallus was the tie that connected Pollio and Vergil, for we find in a
letter of Pollio's to Cicero that the former while campaigning in Spain
was in the habit of exchanging literary chitchat with Gallus. That was in
the spring of 43, at the very time doubtless when Pollio--as young men
then did--spent his leisure moments between battles in writing tragedies.
Vergil in his eighth Eclogue, perhaps with over-generous praise, compares
these plays with those of Sophocles.

This _Eclogue_ presents one of the most striking studies in primitive
custom that Latin poetry has produced, a bit of realism suffused with a
romantic pastoral atmosphere. The first shepherd's song is of unrequited
love cherished from boyhood for a maiden who has now chosen a worthless