[Footnote 17: Ye fields accursed for our statesmen's sins, O Discord ever foe to men of peace, In want, an exile, uncondemned, I yield My lands, to pay the wages of a hell-born war. Ere I go hence, one last look towards my fields, Then to the woods I turn to close you out From view, but ye shall hear my curses still.]
[Footnote 18: The _Lydia_ which comes in the MS. attached to the _Dirae_ is not Vergil's. Nor can it be the famous poem of that name written by Valerius Cato, despite the opinion of Lindsay, _Class. Review_, 1918, p. 62. It is too slight and ineffectual to be identified with that work. The poem abounds with conceits that a neurotic and sentimental pupil of Propertius--not too well practiced in verse writing--would be likely to cull from his master.]
For Vergil there was henceforth no joy in war or the fruits of war. His devotion to Julius Caesar had been unquestioned, and Octavian, when he proved himself a worthy successor and established peace, inherited that devotion. But for the patriots who had fought the losing battle he had only a heart full of pity.
Ne pueri ne tanta animis adsuescite bella, Neu patriae validos in viscera vertite viris; Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, Projice tela manu, sanguis meus!
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.