Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/213

Rh M A E M A E 195 the humaner policy of Octavianus after his first alliance with Antony and Lepidus. Even Seneca, who shows a very bitter animus against him, admits that he deserved the credit of clemency, although he attributes it to effeminacy rather than to true humanity. The highest tribute paid to him in his capacity of minister is to be found in the least eminent of the poets whose genius he fostered. &quot; The true trophies of Maecenas,&quot; says Propertius, &quot; will be his loyalty.&quot; l And in another elegy he addresses him as &quot; fidele caput.&quot; One great testimony both to his loyalty and to his tact is the saying of Augustus, when he had made public the scandal concerning his daughter Julia, &quot; that all this would never have happened if Agrippa or Maecenas had lived&quot; (Sen., De Ben., vi. 32). The only instance in which he is said to have acted with indiscretion as a. minister was in his betrayal to his wife Terentia of his knowledge of the conspiracy in which her brother Licinius Munena was involved. The best summary of his character as a man and a statesman is that of Velleius (ii. 88), who describes him as &quot; in critical emergencies of sleepless vigilance far-seeing and knowing how to act, but in his relaxation from business more luxurious and effeminate than a woman.&quot; The latter is the aspect of his character on which Seneca chiefly dwells. He draws attention to the enervating effect which his good fortune had even on his literary style. We need not ask how far &quot;the stately mansion on the Esquiline&quot; outdid in luxury the &quot; gardens of Seneca the millionaire &quot; (&quot; Senecae prajdivitis hortos&quot;). 2 Maecenas was certainly a man who combined an epicurean love of pleasure with a thorough devotion to business ; and verses of his own are quoted against him. indicative of an unmanly clinging to life after the loss of all that makes life valuable. These may have been written in the feverish unrest of his last years, when he was no longer himself ; but expressions in the Odes of Horace (ii. 17, 1), written at a much earlier period, seem to imply that he was deficient in the robustness of fibre characteristic of the average Roman. His style of dress and his indolent lounging walk exposed him to animadver sion ; and the Maltinus of Horace s Satires (i. 2, 25) was supposed by some ancient commentators to be a sketch of the great man, drawn before the poet was admitted to his intimacy. Probably there may have been some affectation or politic dissimulation in this assumption of a character so alien to the standard of the aspirants to public honours at Rome. It was an exaggerated form of that indifference to appearances and conventionalities which made him satisfied with the position of an eques, and induced him to choose his intimate associates from poets of obscure and provincial origin. His ambition was to be the second man in the empire, and to enjoy the reality without the show of power. A similar character is attributed by Tacitus to Sallustius Crispus, who, after the death of Maecenas, most enjoyed the favour of Augustus. His character as a munificent patron of literature is not only acknowledged gratefully by the recipients of it in his own time, but is attested by the regrets of the men of letters of a later age, expressed through the mouths of Martial and Juvenal. His patronage was exercised, not from vanity or a mere dilettante love of letters, but with a view to the higher interest of the state. He recognized in the genius of the poets of that time, not only the truest orna ment of the court, but a power of reconciling men s minds to the new order of things, and of investing the actual state of affairs with an ideal glory and majesty. The change in seriousness of purpose between the Eclogues and the Geor- gics of Virgil was, in a great measure, the result of the direction given by the statesman to the poet s genius. A 1 Propert., El. iv. 9, 34 ; ii. 1, 36. 2 Juv. x. 16. similar change between the earlier odes of Horace, in which he declares his epicurean indifference to affairs of state, and the great national odes of the third book is to be ascribed to the same guidance. He endeavoured also to divert the less masculine genius of Propertius from harping continually on his love to themes of public interest. But, if the motive of his patronage had been merely politic, it never could have inspired the affection which it did in its recipients. The great charm of Maecenas in his relation to the men of genius who formed his circle was his simplicity, cordiality, and sincerity. Although not particular in the choice of some of the associates of his pleasures, he admitted none but men of worth to his j intimacy, and when once admitted they were treated like equals. That loyalty which was his own distinction in his public life was, if we may trust the evidence of Horace, the characteristic of his own relations to his intimates, and of their relations to one another. But, while loyal to all, to Horace he was bound by a closer tie. Among the great friendships of history, none is more certainly attested, or more honourable to both parties, than that between the poet and the statesman. Much of the wisdom of Maecenas probably lives in the Satires and Epistles of Horace. - It has fallen to the lot of no other patron of literature to have his name associated with works of such lasting interest as the Georgics^oi Virgil, the first three books of Horace s Odes, and the first book of his Epistles. Such a fortune can scarcely have been altogether undeserved. Accepting as literally true the disparaging statements of Seneca, admitting the weakness, and perhaps the vanity, which were the blots in his character, and considering at the same, time the difficulties of an unprecedented position, we must allow that few ministers of an irresponsible monarch have accomplished so much with such immunity from the baser and more violent passions, for the gratifica tion of which that position holds out unlimited oppor tunities. As a minister and friend of the emperor he compared favourably, both as regards capacity and character, not with men of the stamp of Sejanus and Tigellinus, but with Seneca. Few men have used the influence of a grand seigneur with such enlightened beneficence, with such lasting results on human culture and civilization, with such genuine simplicity and cordial loyalty. (w. Y. s.) MAESTRICHT, or MAASTRICHT, the chief town of the province of Limburg, in the Netherlands, lies, as the name expresses, at the trecht or crossing of the Maas (Meuse), where the Romans erected a military post on the road between Bagacum (Bavay)and Colonia Agrippina (Cologne). Aix-la-Chapelle is 18 miles east-south-east, and Liege 18 miles south by west. The baths discovered in 1840 in the Groote Stokstraat show that the settlement at Trajectum ad Mosam became a place of some considerable importance. The town is divided by the river into two parts the larger portion, or Maastricht proper, on the left bank, and the smaller portion, distinguished as Wijk, on the right. A stone bridge of eight arches connecting the two took the place of a wooden structure as early as 1280, and was greatly improved in 1828 and 1836. Formerly a fortress, Maestricht is still a considerable garrison town, but its ramparts were dismantled 1871-78; formerly the seat of a bishop, it still bears a strongly Roman Catholic impress ; and, in modern times more especially, it has developed into a great centre of commerce and industry. The churches and religious foundations are almost the only buildings of note, the chief exceptions being the town-house, completed in 1683, and the solitary Protestant church, Janskerk (13th century). The church of St Servatius was, according to ! one account, rebuilt and enlarged as early as the time of i Charles the Great. It is now 260 feet in length, and