[187] Hor., Od. ii. 1, 15-16; Dio, 48, 41; C. I. L., i. p. 461. Pollio after this withdrew from active political life and devoted himself to literature. He seems to have taken no part in the subsequent quarrels between Antony and Augustus.
[188] Dio, 48, 19, 48; Hor., Epod. 9, 17.
[189] The first period ended on the last day of B.C. 38; but neither Antony nor Cæsar had laid down their imperium of office. They now assumed that it went on from the first day of B.C. 37, the want of legal sanction during the intervening months being ignored. There is no certain trace of this second triumvirate having been confirmed by a lex; yet one would think that they would have taken care to have that formality observed. See p. 143.
[190] Cicero, ad Fam. xi. 9; Cicero himself calls him levissimus, ad Brut. 1, 15, § 9.
[191] In B.C. 52 Cicero had wished to give his daughter Tullia in marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero (Cic., Att. 6, 6.).
[192] He was quæstor in B.C. 48, and therefore was not born later than B.C. 78. Livia was born B.C. 58.
[193] Even Suetonius, not much inclined to speak good of Augustus, admits that he dilexit et probavit unice ac perseveranter.
[194] Suetonius (c. 22) says that he had two ovations—after Philippi and after the bellum Siculum. But if an ovation was decreed after Philippi, it was not celebrated till B.C. 40, upon the reconciliation with Antony. The second was this. Another had been voted in B.C. 43 after Mutina, but not celebrated (C. I. L. i. p. 461). See also p. 100.
[195] Appian (b. c. v. 132) says that they elected him perpetual tribune (αὐτὸν ... εἕλοντο δήμαρχον ἐς ἀεί). Dio (49, 15) only says that they gave him the personal sacredness of the tribunes and the right of sitting on their bench. Orosius (6, 18, 34) says that the Senate voted ut in perpetuum tribuniciæ potestatis esset. We shall have to discuss this later on, but it must be said at once that Augustus was never tribune, and that it seems doubtful whether the tribunicia potestas was given in its full sense at this time.
[196] Dio, 49, 14; Strabo, x. 4, 9.