A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

MAECENAS. MAECENAS. 893
Gaul in B.C. 16 was to enjoy the society of Terentina he deserved it. -In recent times, and by some
unmolested by the lampoons which it gave occasion German authors, especially the celebrated Wieland
to at Rome. But, whatever may have been the in his Introduction and Notes to Horace's Epistles,
cause, the political career of Maecenas may be con- Maecenas's claims to the title of a literary patron
sidered as then at an end; and we shall therefore have been depreciated. It is urged that he is not
now turn to contemplate him in private life. mentioned by Ovid and Tibullus; that the Sabine
The public services of Maecenas, though im- farm which he gave to Horace was not so very
portant, were unobtrusive; and notwithstanding large; that his conduct was perhaps not altogether
the part that he played in assisting to establish the disinterested, and that he might have befriended
empire, it is by his private pursuits, and more par- literary men either out of vanity or from political
ti6ularly by his reputation as a patron of literature, motives; that he was not singular in his literary
that he has been best known to posterity. His patronage, which was a fashion amongst the emiretirement was probably far from disagreeable to nent Romans of the day, as Messalla Corvinus,
him, as it was accompanied with many circum- Asinius Pollio, and others; and that he was too
stances calculated to recommend it to one of his knowing in pearls and beryls to be a competent
turn of mind, naturally a votary of ease and plea- judge of the higher works of genius. As for his
sure. He had amassed an enormous fortune, which motives, or the reasons why he did not adopt
Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 53, 55) attributes to the libe- Tibullus and Ovid, we shall only remark, that as
rality of Augustus. It has been sometimes insinu- they are utterly unknown to us, so it is only fair
ated that he grew rich by the proscriptions; and to put the most liberal construction on them; and
Pliny (H. N. xxxvii. 4), speaking of Maecenas's that he had naturally a love of literature for its
private seal, which bore the impression of a frog, own sake, apart from all political or interested
represents it as having been an object of terror to views, may be inferred from the fact of his having.
the tax-payers. It by no means follows, however, been himself a voluminous author. Though literary
that the money. levied under his private seal was patronage may have been the fashion of the day, it.
applied to his private purposes; and had he been would be difficult to point out any contemporary
inclined to misappropriate the taxes, we know that Roman, or indeed any at all, who indulged it so
Caesar's own seal was at his unlimited disposal, magnificently. His name had become proverbial
and would have better covered his delinquencies. for a patron of letters'at least as early as the time
Maecenas had purchased a tract of ground on of Martial; and though the assertion of that author
the Esquiline hill, which had formerly served as a (viii. 56), that the poets enriched by the bounty of
burial-place for the lower orders. (Hor. Sat. i. 8. 7.) Maecenas were not easily to be counted, is not, of
Here he had planted a garden and built a house course, to be taken literally, it would have been
remarkable for its loftiness, on account of a tower utterly ridiculous had there not been some foundaby which it was surmounted, and from the top of tion for it. That he was no bad judge of literary
which Nero is said to have afterwards contem- merit is shown by the sort of men whom he
plated the burning of Rome. In this residence he patronised-Virgil, Horace, Propertius; besides
seems to have passed the greater part of his time, others, almost their equals in reputation, but whose
and to have visited the country but seldom; for works are now unfortunately lost, as Varius, Tucca.
though he might possibly have possessed a villa at and.others. But as Virgil and Horace were by far
Tibur, near the falls of the Anio, there is no direct the greatest geniuses of the age, so it is certain
authority for the fact. Tacitus tells us that he that they were more beloved by Maecenas, the
spent his leisure rb~e in ipsa; and the deep tran- latter especially, than any of their contemporaries.
quillity of his repose may be conjectured from the Virgil was indebted to him for the recovery of his
epithet by which the same historian designates it farm, which had been appropriated by the soldiery
-velut peregrinuzc otium. (Ann. xiv. 53.) The in the division of lands, in B.C. 41; and it was at
height of the situation seems to have rendered it a the request of Maecenas that he undertook the
healthy abode (Hor. Sat. i. 8, 14); and we learn Georgics, the most finished of all his poems. To
from Suetonius (Aug. 72) that Augustus had on Horace he was a still greater benefactor.' He not
one occasion retired thither to recover from a sick- only procured him a pardon for having fought
ness. against Octavianus at Philippi, but presented him
Maecenas's house was the rendezvous of all the with the means of comfortable subsistence, a farm
wits and virtuosi of Rome; and whoever could con- in the Sabine country. If the estate was but a
tribute to the amusement of the company was moderate one, we learn from Horace himself that
always welcome to a seat at his table. In this kind the bounty of Maecenas was regulated by his own
of society he does not appear to have been very contented views, and not by his patron's want of
select; and it was probably from his undistin- generosity. (Carme. ii. 18. 14, Carma. iii. 16. 38.)
guishing hospitality that Augustus called his board Nor was this liberality accompanied with any
parasitica mensa. (Suet. Fit. Hor.). Yet he was servile and degrading conditions. The poet was at
naturally of a reserved and taciturn disposition, liberty to write or not, as he pleased, and lived in
and drew a broad distinction between the ac- a state of independence creditable alike to himself
quaintances that he adopted for the amusement of and to his patron. Indeed their intimacy was
an idle hour, and the friends whom he admitted to rather that of two familiar friends of equal station,
his intimacy and confidence. In the latter case than of the royally-descendedand powerfulminister
he was as careful and chary as he was indiscrimi- of Caesar, with the son of an obscure freedman.
nating in the former. His really intimate friends, But on this point we need not dwell, as it has been
consisted of the greatest geniuses and most learned already touched upon in the life of Horace.
men of Rome; and if it was from his universal Of Maecenas's own literary productions, only
inclination towards men of talent that he obtained a few fragments exist. From these, however, and
the reputation of a literary patron, it was by his from the notices which we find of his writings in
friendship for such poets as Virgil and Horace that ancient authors, we are led to think that we have