Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/907

Rh MAECENAS. Gaul in b, c. 16 was to enjoy the society of Terentia unmolested by the lampoons which it gave occasion to at Rome. But, whatever may have been the cause, the political career of Maecenas may be con- sidered as then at an end ; and we shall therefore now turn to contemplate him in private life. The public services of Maecenas, though im- portant, were unobtrusive ; and notwithstanding the part that he played in assisting to establish the empire, it is by his private pursuits, and more par- ticularly by his reputation as a patron of literature, that he has been best known to posterity. His retirement was probably far from disagreeable to him, as it was accompanied with many circum- stances calculated to recommend it to one of his turn of mind, naturally a votary of ease and plea- sure. He had amassed an enormous fortune, which Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 5li, 55) attributes to the libe- rality of Augustus. It has been sometimes insinu- ated that he grew rich by the proscriptions ; and Pliny (//. N. xxxvii. 4 ), speaking of Maecenas's private seal, which bore the impression of a frog, represents it as having been an object of terror to the tax-payers. It by no means follows, however, that the money levied under his private seal was applied to his private purposes ; and had he been inclined to misappropriate the taxes, we know that Caesar's own seal was at his unlimited disposal, and would have better covered his delinquencies. Maecenas had purchased a tract of ground on the Esquiline hill, which had formerly served as a burial-place for the lower orders. (Hor. Sat. i. 8. 7.) Here he had planted a garden and built a house remarkable for its loftiness, on account of a tower by which it was surmounted, and from the top of which Nero is said to have afterwards contem- plated the burning of Rome. In this residence he seems to have passed the greater part of his time, and to have visited the country but seldom ; for though he might possibly have possessed a villa at Tibur, near the falls of the Anio, there is no direct authority for the fact. Tacitus tells us that he spent his leisure urLe in ipsa ; and the deep tran- quillity of his repose may be conjectured from the epithet by which the same historian designates it ■ — y%.i peregrinum oixm. {Ann. xi. 6'd.) The height of the situation seems to have rendered it a healthy abode (Hor. Sat. i. 8. 14) ; and we learn from Suetonius {Aug. 72) that Augustus had on one occasion retired thither to recover from a sick- ness. Maecenas's house was the rendezvous of all the wits and virtuosi of Rome ; and whoever could con- tribute to the amusement of the company was always welcome to a seat at his table. In this kind of society he does not appear to have been very select ; and it was probably from his undistin- guishiiig hospitality that Augustus called his board parasitica mensa. (Suet. Vit. Hor.) Yet he was naturally of a reserved and taciturn disposition, and drew a broad distinction between the ac- quaintJinces that he adopted for the amusement of an idle hour, and the friends whom he admitted to his intimacy and confidence. In the latter case he was as careful and chary as he was indiscrimi- nating in the former. His really intimate friends consisted of the greatest geniuses and most learned men of Rome ; and if it was from his universal inclination towards men of talent that he obtained the reputation of a literary patron, it was by his friendship for such poets as Virgil aud Horace that MAECENAS. 893 he deserved it. In recent times, and by some German authors, especially the celebrated Wieland in his Introduction and Notes to Horace's Epistles, Maecenas's claims to the title of a literary patron have been depreciated. It is urged that he is not mentioned by Ovid and TibuUus ; that the Sabine farm which he gave to Horace was not so very large ; that his conduct was perhaps not altogether disinterested, and that he might have befriended literary men either out of vanity or from political motives ; that he was not singular in his literary patronage, which was a fashion amongst the emi- nent Romans of the day, as Messalla Corvinus, Asinius Pollio, and others ; and that he was too knowing in pearls and beryls to be a competent judge of the higher works of genius. As for his motives, or the reasons why he did not adopt Tibullus and Ovid, we shall only remark, that as they are utterly unknown to us, so it is only fair to put the most liberal construction on them ; and that he had naturally a love of literature for its own sake, apart from all political or interested views, may be inferred from the fact of his having been himself a voluminous author. Though literary patronage may have been the fashion of the day, it would be difficult to point out any contemporary Roman, or indeed any at all, who indulged it so magnificently. His name had become proverbial for a patron of letters at least as early as the time of Martial ; and though the assertion of that author (viii. bQ)., that the poets enriched by the bounty of Maecenas were not easily to be counted, is not, of course, to be taken literally, it would have been utterly ridiculous had there not been some founda- tion for it. That he was no bad judge of literary merit is shown by the sort of men whom he patronised — Virgil, Horace, Propertius ; besides others, almost their equals in reputation, but whose works are now unfortunately lost, as Varius, Tucca, and others. But as Virgil and Horace were by far the greatest geniuses of the age, so it is certain that they were more beloved by Maecenas, the latter especially, than any of their contemporaries. Virgil was indebted to him for the recovery of his farm, which had been appropriated by the soldiery in the division of lands, in B. c. 41 ; and it was at the request of Maecenas that he undertook the Georgics., the most finished of all his poems. To Horace he was a still greater benefactor. He not only procured him a pardon for having fought against Octavianus at Philippi, but presented him with the means of comfortable subsistence, a farm in the Sabine country. If the estate was but a moderate one, we learn from Horace himself that the bounty of Maecenas was regulated by his own contented views, and not by his patron's want nf generosity. {Carm. ii. 18. 14, Carni. iii. 16. 38.) Nor was this liberality accompanied with any servile and degrading conditions. The poet was at liberty to write or not, as he pleased, and lived in a state of independence creditable alike to himself iind to his patron. Indeed their intimacy was rather that of two familiar friends of equal station, than of the royally -descended and powerful minister of Caesar, with the son of an obscure freedman. But on this point we need not dwell, as it has been already touched upon in the life of Horace. Of Maecenas's own literary productions, only a few fragments exist. From these, however, and from the notices which we find of his writings in ancient authors, we are led to think that we have