BIOGRAPHY OF MÆCENAS HIS INTIMACY AND INFLUENCE WITH AUGUSTUS-HIS CHARAC- Дил вся 15 that C. CILNIUS MECENAS. Och day I des of April IN a literary history it is impossible to omit some account of one who, although his attempts at poetry were very contemptible, exercised, by his good taste and munificence, a great influence upon literature, and to whom the literary men of Rome were much indebted for the use which he made of his confidential friendship with Augustus. 1 C. Cilnius Maecenas was a member of an equestrian family, which, though it derived its descent from the old Etruscan kings, does not appear to have produced any distinguished individuals. His birth-year is unknown, but his birth-day was the ides (13th) of April. We have no information respecting the origin of his intimacy with Augustus. Probably his cultivated taste, his extensive acquaintance with Greek and Roman literature, his imperturbable temper, and love of pleasure, first recommended him as an agreeable companion to Octavius. His good sense, activity, and energy in business, and decisive character, qualities in which his irresolute and desultory patron was signally deficient, enabled him rapidly to improve the acquaintance into intimacy. It is said by Dion Cassius3 that Augustus obtained from Maecenas a complete plan for the internal administration of his newly-acquired empire, and that in it were displayed sound judgment and political wisdom. It is probable that there is some exaggeration in this statement; but that, without being a great man, he was in these respects a greater man than Augustus, who, therefore, when he required his support, could lean upon him with safety. And yet his weaknesses were such as to prevent any feeling of jealousy, or appearance of supe3 Lib. lii. 14, &c. Hom. Od. I. i. 2 Od. IV. ii. riority from endangering his friendship with the emperor. His love of pleasure, and of the quiet and careless enjoyments of a private station, proved, as it turned out, a blessing to his country. His heart was so full of the delights of refined and intellectual society-of palaces and gardens, and wit and poetry, and collec tions of art and virtû-that there was no room in it for ambition. His careless and sauntering indolence was openly displayed in his lounging gait, and his toga trailing on the ground. No one could possibly suspect such a loiterer of sufficient energy or application to be a politician and an intriguer. Such being his character, tastes, and habits, he felt no temptation to abuse his influence with Augustus. He did not covet honors and office, because he knew they must bring trouble and distraction, perhaps peril, with them. He exercised his power, which was undoubtedly great, to promote that luxurious, yet refined, elegance in which he himself delighted, and to secure the welfare of his literary friends. He had wealth enough to gratify his utmost wishes. Augustus, therefore, had nothing more to confer on him which he valued, except personal esteem and regard. The confidence which the Emperor reposed in him is shown by his employing him in some affairs of great delicacy: first, in arranging a marriage with Scribonia; and, subsequently, on two occasions, in negotiating with Antony.' In B. c. 36, he accompanied Octavius into Sicily, but was sent back in order to undertake the administration of Rome and Italy; and during the campaign at Actium,3 Mæcenas was again vicegerent, in which capacity he crushed the conspiracy of the younger Lepidus. So unlimited was his power, that he was even intrusted with the signet of Octavius, and with authority to open, and even to alter, if necessary, all letters which he wrote to the senate during his campaign; and when the victorious general, on his return to Rome, consulted with him and Agrippa as to the expediency of re-establishing the republic, Macenas, in opposition to the recommendation of Agrippa, dissuaded him from taking that step. The moral influence, also, of Mæcenas over Augustus is very striking. So long as it continued, we see nothing of that heartless cruelty, that disregard of the happiness of others, which deformed the early life of the Emperor: if he was heartless, he at least did that as a matter of taste which a better man would have done on principle; and if he was still selfish, he sought fame and glory by the wise counsels of peace rather than by the brilliant triumphs of war: he conciliated friends instead of crushing enemies. CHARACTER OF MECENAS. 259 The intimacy between Mæcenas and the Emperor continued for at least ten years after the battle of Actium: then an estrangement commenced; and in B. c. 16, he was deprived of his official position, and Taurus was intrusted with the administration of Rome and Italy, Scandalous stories have been told about his wife Terentia and the Emperor, in order to account for the interruption of their intimacy; but no special causes are necessary to account for an event so common. The words of Tacitus' are a sufficient solution of the problem: "Idque et Mæcenati acciderat; fato potentiæ, raro sempiternæ, an satietas capit, aut illos, cum omnia tribuerunt, aut hos, cum jam nihil reliquum est, quod cupiant." He retained the outward appearance of the imperial friendship, although he had lost the reality. He went to court on the birth-day, but ceased to be of the Emperor's council. His life was passed in the voluptuous retirement of his palace on the Esquiline, which he had built for himself. This hill was not generally considered wholesome: probably the fact that it had been a burial-ground' created a prejudice against it; but the loftiness of the site chosen, as well as of the building itself (molem vicinam nubibus), and the breeze which played freely through the lovely garden with which it was surrounded, rendered it salubrious. All the most brilliant society of Rome was found at his table; and many of the best of them received still more substantial marks of his favor.3 Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius, were amongst his friends and constant associates. Maecenas was a low-spirited invalid; latterly he could not sleep, and endeavored in vain to procure repose by listening to soft music. In his last distressing illness he generally resided at his Tiburtine villa, where the murmuring falls of the Anio invited that sleep which was denied him elsewhere. He died B. c. 8, and was buried on the Esquiline. Though married, he left no chil'dren, and bequeathed his property to the Emperor, whom he besought in his will not to forget his beloved Horace. His taste as a critic was evidently far superior to his talents as a writer. Few fragments of his writings remain; and all ancient critics are unanimous in the condemnation of his style. Augustus laughed at his affected jargon of mingled Etruscan and Latin. Quintilian' quotes instances of his absurd inversions and transpo Annal. iii. 30. 2 Hor. Sat. i. 8, 7. 4 Plin. vii. 51; Hor. C. ii. 17. 6 Suet. 26. 7 Lib. ix. 4, 28. 3 Mart. viii. 56. sitions; and Seneca' shows by an example, its unintelligible obscurity. He was a sensualist and a voluptuary, and an unfaithfui husband; and yet he was devotedly fond of his wife, the beautiful but ill-tempered Terentia, who had a great influence over him. He would divorce her one day only to restore her to conjugal rights on the next; and Seneca said that, though he had only one wife, he was married a thousand times. He abhorred cruelty and severity, and would not let it pass unrebuked even in the Emperor; and although he made a boast of effeminacy, he was ready to devote himself heartily to business in cases of emergency. In fact, he was a fair specimen of the man of pleasure and society: liberal, kind-hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and volatile, with good instincts and impulses, but without principle. C. VALGIUS RUFUS. Amongst the poets of the Augustan age, whose writings were much admired by their contemporaries, but have not stood the searching test of time, was Valgius Rufus. Of his life no records remain; but he probably belonged to that class of authors of whom Pliny says, "Quibus nos in vehiculo, in balneo, inter conam, oblectamus otium temporis." They were light and pleasing, calculated to amuse an idle half-hour, or to relieve the tedium of a journey. They answered the purpose of the railroad literature. of our own days. These writers had a correct taste, and a critical discernment of poetical beauty, rather than a genius for poetical composition. Probably their personal characters had something to do with their reputation; they were members of a literary coterie; they lived, thought, and felt together; they defended each other against malicious criticism; and the bonds of friendship by which they were united tempted the greater poets to regard their effusions with kind but undue partiality. Valgius Rufus was a great favorite of Horace, but only a few short, isolated passages are extant of his poems. Quintilian' attributes to him a translation The three passages quoted by Quintilian show a wanton awkwardness in arrangement almost inconceivable : Sole et Aurora rubent plurima Inter sacra movit aqua fraxinos: Ne exequias quidem unus inter miserrimos The last of these he considers especially offensive, because he seems to be trifling with a melancholy subject. Sen. Ep. 114. 4 Epp. iv. 14; vii. 4. 6 Weichert, Poet. Lat. Rell. 3 Tac. Ann. i. 53. 5 Sat. I. x.; Od. ii. 9. 7 Lib. iii. i. 18. |