Early Life
An inscription tells us his father was called Gnaeus Asinius Pollio. He had a brother called Asinius Marrucinus, known for his tasteless practical jokes, whose name suggests a family origin among the Marrucini. He may therefore have been the grandson of Herius Asinius, a plebeian, General of the Marrucini who fought on the Italian side in the Social War.
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 unsuccessfully impeached Gaius Cato, a distant relative of the more famous Cato the younger, who, in his tribunate in 56 BC, had acted as the tool of the triumvirs Pompey, Crassus and Caesar.
Read more about this topic: Gaius Asinius Pollio (consul 40 BC)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Time, fall no more.
Let that be life time falls no more. The threat
Of time we in our own courage have forsworn.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)