Caius Asinius, a distinguished orator, poet, and historian of the Augustan age, was descended from a family of the Marrucini, and was born B.C. 76. He had consequently frequent opportunities during his youth of hearing Cicero, Caesar, Hortensius, and the other great orators of his day. He attempted early to signalize himself by accusing C. Cato, B.C. 54, when in his twenty-second year, but the powerful influence of Pompey proved too great for him. He espoused Caesar's party when a rupture took place between Pompey and Caesar, joined his army in Cisalpine Gaul, accompanied him across the Rubicon, served with him in the campaign against Pompey at Pharsalia, B.C. 48, and fought at his side against the Pompeian party in Africa. On his return to Rome, he was created praetorius, B.C. 44; and shortly after was sent to Spain. March of the same year saw the death of Caesar; and Asinius Pollio well-nigh lost his life in fighting against Sextus Pompey. He joined the triumvirate of Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus, and had assigned to him the difficult task of being administrator of Transpadane Gaul. It was at this juncture that he saved the property of the poet Virgil at Mantua from being confiscated. On his return to Rome, he became consul, and had the honour to have addressed to him the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. In 39 B.C. Antony sent him with a portion of his army to fight against the Parthians; and his success was the means of gaining him a triumph, and the eighth Eclogue of Virgil. From this time he seems to have withdrawn altogether from political life, and to have devoted himself to the study of literature. He lived to see Augustus fully established in his reign, when he died at his Tuscan villa, A.D. 4.

Asinius Pollio was the first to establish a public library at Rome. He was likewise the patron of Virgil and Horace (Carmen ii. i), not to speak of other eminent poets and writers. None of Pollio's works have come down to us. Besides his speeches, he was author of a history of the civil wars, in seventeen volumes, besides tragedies, which have led his contemporaries and successors to class his name with those of Cicero, Virgil, and Sallust, as an orator, a poet, and a historian. The reader may consult Eckhardt's Commentatio de C. Asinio, Jena, 1793; Thorbecke's Commentatio de C. Asini Pollionis Vita et Studia, Lugd. Batav., 1820; and Smith's Dictionary of Biog. and Myth., London, 1851.