150
C1LNIUS maecenas.
or timid before Augustus, who promoted him thrice to the
consulship. Agrippadied, !believe, in 740; Maecenas breathed
his last in 744, in which year Horace also died.
The great Cilnius Maecenas shared the friendship of Augustus
with Agrippa. He was descended from a noble Etruscan family
of Arretium, where his ancestors must have been a sort of
dynasts, whence Horace calls them reges.i They must have
had the Roman franchise previously to the passing of the
Julian law, for a Cilnius Maecenas is mentioned by Cicero5
among the équités Splendidissimi who opposed the tribune, M.
Drusus, before the outbreak of the Social War. Horace’s
expression6,
Ncc quod ax us tibi mateɪnus fuit atque pateruιιs,
Olim qui magnis regionibus impcritarent,
also seems to suggest that the ancestors of Maecenas, on his
father’s as well as his mother’s side, held the highest magistracy
at Arretium, at the time when Etruria was yet free. Maecenas
himself never would rise above his equestrian rank, but he has
nevertheless acquired a reputation as the patron and protector
of Horace and Virgil, which will last for ever. We will
rejoice that he did patronise such men, and will not inquire
into his motives, a task which it is impossible to perform, and
is often very ungracious ; but Maecenas himself was a singular
man, and an Epicurean in the worst sense of the word: he
made an ostentatious display of his opinion that ease and
comfort are the greatest blessings of human life. His own
conduct was more than effeminate, and 1 can only describe it
by saying that he was morbidly effeminate. We know from
Horace that he was of a sickly constitution; but he would
rather have spent a long life in illness and suffering, than lose
the enjoyment of it by death.7 He clung to life with a morbid
attachment. There was also something childish and trifling
in his character: he took a foolish pleasure in jewellery and
precious stones, for which he was often ridiculed by Augustus,
to whom however he was a very agreeable companion and a
convenient person. He had a truly Epicurean contempt for
all outward distinctions; he may have attached not a little
importance to influence in the state ; but the honours which
4 (Od. i. 1, 1; in. 25, 1.) The name of the Cilnii occurs very often on the
monuments of ʌiretium. -N. 5 Pro Cluent. 56.
6 Satιr. i. 6. 3, full. 7 Horat. Od. ii, 17, 1, foil.
CHANCES OE AGK1PPΛ⅛ SUCCESSION.
151
Agrippa was anxious to obtain appeared to Maecenas as folly.
Augustus however possessed in him a prudent counsellor8, and
on one occasion Maecenas acted in a manner which shewed
that, after all, the man was better than his philosophy; for
one day, during either the time of the Triumvirate or the
Perusinian war, when Augustus was pronouncing one sentence
of death after another from his tribunal, Maecenas sent him a
note in which he said, “ Do get up, you hangman/’9
It has been justly observed by Tacitus, that so long as these
two men, and Drusus, the younger son of Livia, were alive,
the government of Augustus was in reality praiseworthy; but
after their death matters became considerably worse. Augustus
in his earlier years was often attacked by dangerous illnesses;
one he fell into in Gaul; from another he was cured by Anto-
nius Musa by means of cold baths ; but in his later years his
health became more settled: he was one of those men whose
state of health does not assume a definite character until about
their fiftieth year. At the time when M. Marcellus was yet a
child, Augustus, who hinwclf was very young, once, on being
taken seriously ill, fancying that his end was near, gave his
ring to Agrippa ; in his will he made no arrangements for the
succession. During the latter years of Marcellus’ life, there
was a misunderstanding between Augustus and Agrippa, the
cause of which was probably the partiality which Augustus
shewed for Marcellus. Agrippa withdrew in consequence to
Mitylcne. Whenever Velleius Paterculus chooses to give utter-
ance to his thoughts—which in many cases he will not do,
for he is a servile flatterer of Tiberius—few writers can say
more in a few words, or give a briefer and yet more striking
description of a man’s character than he. Now he says of
Agrippa, that he submitted to none but Augustus, parendi,
sed uni, Scieniissimus.1° He submitted to Augustus, but was
haughty towards all who had risen later than himself. If
Augustus had then died, Agrippa would undoubtedly have
put aside young Marcellus, and Tiberius and Drusus, the sons
of Livia.11 The manner in which he was courted in the East
during his stay at Mitylene, shews that he was generally looked
upon as the future sovereign. After the premature death of
Marcellus, at the age of twenty-three, in whom Bome appears
8 Comp. Veil. Paterc. ii. 88 9 Dion Cassiut, lv. 7 ; Ceclrenus, vol. ii. p. 301.
10 ii. 79. 11 Veil. Paterc. i,. O