Mecene, Ombres Et Flamboyances

Little is known today about Maecenas, a descendant of Etruscan kings, friend of the first Emperor, Augustus, and key figure in the final years of the Roman Republic and the emerging Empire.As a diplomat, an advisor to Octavian and Augustus and even, briefly, head of the government of Rome and Italy, he played a major role in the emergence of what was essentially a monarchic regime. This political commitment caused him to be viewed by his senator adversaries (and later by Seneca) as an unsavoury person. His adherence to Epicureanism, in particular, was exploited in order to discredit a knight who should never have had to take on the responsibilities thrust upon him within the Roman State. Nonetheless, it is primarily as a protector of the poets – Virgil, Horace and Propertius in particular – that Maecenas left his name to posterity and very soon came to symbolise the Golden Age of literary patronage.It was under his patronage that some of the leading works of Latin literature were written, most notably the Aeneid. He, among others, spearheaded a cultural policy aimed at giving Rome a literature capable of rivalling with that of the Greek world. This singular figure with his taste for both obscurity and for provocation, was prominent in an Epicurean circle which may have been therapeutic for his anxious nature. Maecenas marked the history of Rome in exceptional ways.The product of five years of research, this biography revives the portrait of Maecenas, shedding light not only on his political activism, but also on his role as a protector of Latin literature, while conveying the singularities of an unconventional, controversial, and often misunderstood, figure.