The Consequences of the Triumvirate: The View of Asinius Pollio
The Consequences of the Triumvirate: The View of Asinius Pollio
The causal connection between the triumvirate and the civil war is stated in the opening lines of an ode to Asinius Pollio, in which the sometime republican Horace salutes the birth and development of Asinius' work on the civil war. To Horace, many years after the event, the battle of Philippi remained the moment at which ‘Valour's self was beaten down’ (cum fracta virtus). This view, not unlike that of Cremutius, but clearly set in a poem that views everything with disenchantment, appears in a book that opens with a somewhat nervous announcement of Pollio's forthcoming historical work. It is the ode of ‘a shield ingloriously abandoned’, a nostalgic ode looking back on a politically critical moment.
Keywords: triumvirate, Asinius Pollio, civil war, Horace, battle of Philippi
Edinburgh Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.