Mæcenas

Mæcenas, C. CILNIUS, a Roman statesman of Etruscan origin, whose name has become a synonym for a patron of letters. He first appears in history in 40 B.C. engaged in arranging a marriage between Octavian and Scribonia. Later we find him negotiating the peace of Brundisium, and acting with vigour in the city during the campaign of Actium. When Octavian assumed the supremacy and the title of Augustus, Mæcenas took a chief place in his counsels. The nature and extent of his official power are not very precisely understood, but they were undoubtedly great, though the influence and authority he enjoyed are to be estimated rather from his intimacy with the emperor than his mere position as a public servant. During his later years the friendship was interrupted from reasons that cannot now be exactly ascertained, but mutual esteem survived and no open rupture took place. Mæcenas was a thoroughly sincere imperialist. He had a belief in the value of an established government; and when he found that he no longer retained the confidence of his sovereign he did not lapse into a conspirator; but, as a modern minister might do, retired into the obscurity of private life. He had ever been given to luxury and sensual delights, but his complex nature craved the solace also of higher pleasures. He now gave all his time to literature and the society of literary men. He was immensely rich, and kept an open table for men of parts at his fine house on the Esquiline Hill; above them all he loved the genial Horace. He died in the year 8 B.C., leaving the emperor his wealth.