Maecenas

“ I could not help saying to him that in Greece artists took pains to dress like everybody but to paint like no one.
Last night I supped with Maecenas at his house on the Esquiline. Let me do justice to my host and give praise where praise is due; here are no jarring notes and no foolish display. Maecenas has exquisite taste; his house is not overcrowded with ornaments nor overwhelmed by useless decoration. By a cunning instinct he has realized that art should be the servant of necessity. Everything in his house has a use and a purpose ”

“ Men like Maecenas, whose power and wealth are practically unbounded, are apt to become importunate even in their friendships, and to think that everything should give way to the gratification of their wishes. Something of this spirit had obviously been shown towards Horace. Maecenas may have expressed himself in a tone of complaint, either to the poet himself, or in some way that had reached his ears, about his prolonged absence in the country, which implied that he considered his bounties had given him a claim upon the time of Horace which was not sufficiently considered. ”

“ It is no detraction from the originality of his idea to suppose that some such suggestion as that attributed to Maecenas gave the original impulse to the poem. Not only the art, genius, and learning, but the religious faith and feeling, the moral and national sympathies, which give to it its peculiar meaning and value, are all the poet’s own. ”

“ He possessed however a vigour of spirit equal to great affairs, and exerted the greater promptness for that he hid it in a show of indolence and sloth: he was therefore, in the time of Maecenas, the next in favour, afterwards chief confidant in all the secret counsels of Augustus and Tiberius, and privy and consenting to the order for slaying Agrippa Posthumus. In his old age he preserved with the Prince rather the outside than the vitals of authority: the same had happened to Maecenas. ”

“ It might be Maecenas, the holder of the purse-strings, a man who could not check his ambition to express himself whether in prose or verse. This Etruscan, whose few surviving pages reveal the fact that he never acquired an understanding of the dignity of Rome's language, that he was temperamentally un-Roman in his love for meretricious gaudiness and prettiness, might have worked incalculable harm on this school had his taste in the least affected it. But whether he withheld his dictum, or it was disregarded by the others, no influence of his can be detected in the literature of the epoch. ”

“ Though he drug himself with wine, divert himself with the sound of falling waters, and distract his troubled thoughts with a thousand pleasures, yet Maecenas will no more sleep on his down cushions than Regulus on the rack. Yet it consoles the latter that he suffers for the sake of honour, and he looks away from his torments to their cause: whilst the other, jaded with pleasures and sick with over-enjoyment, is more hurt by the cause of his sufferings than by the sufferings themselves. ”

“ For it was remarkable that even the various artists, musicians, orators, and poets whom Maecenas had gathered in his cool business fashion under that roof, all seemed to become, by contrast with surrounding Nature, as new and artificial as the house, and as powerless to assert themselves against its influence. ”

“ From that time Maecenas himself resided constantly either in his magnificent palace on the Esquiline, or in some of his luxurious villas in the neighbour- hood of Rome. Horace was one of his chosen society.
This constant transition from the town to the country life is among the peculiar charms of the Horatian poetry, which thus embraces every form of Roman society. He describes, with the same intimate familiarity, the manners, the follies, and vices of the capital ; the parasites, the busy cox- combs, the legacy-hunters, the luxurious banquets of the city ”

“ The good sense, tact, and knowledge of the world, the cheerfulness in life and conversation, the honour and integrity of character represented in the same passage, are among the personal qualities which, in all ages, form a bond of union between men eminent in great practical affairs and men eminent in literature. Such were the qualities which, according to his own account, recommended Horace to the intimate friendship of Maecenas. ”

“ The name of Maecenas has been made immortal by Horace and Virgil, and is popularly used to designate an accomplished statesman, who lives in close intimacy with the greatest poets and wits of his time, and heaps benefits on them with the most delicate generosity. ”

“ Maecenas himself is bald, genial, and cultivated; he looks older than he is, and dresses with a very52 slight affectation of coxcombry; his manner is a triumph of the art which conceals art. He talks to you as though you were the one person in the world he had been anxious to see, and as if the topic you were discussing were the preponderating interest of his life. As I entered his hall I found him pacing up and down in eager conversation with Agrippa, the famous admiral; my ears are sharp, and I just caught a fragment of their conversation, which happened to concern the new drains of Rome. ”

“ They pierce his skin with nails: wherever he leans his weary body, it rests on a wound; his eyes are fixed for ever open; the greater his sufferings, the greater is his glory. Would you know how far he is from regretting that he valued his honour at such a price? Heal his wounds and send him again into the senate-house; he will give the same advice. So, then, you think Maecenas a happier man, who when troubled by love, and weeping at the daily repulses of his ill-natured wife, sought for sleep by listening to distant strains of music? ”

“ Each has his place."
Like many of his contemporaries, who were eminent in political life, Maecenas devoted himself to active literary work—for he wrote much, and on a variety of topics. His taste in literature was, however, better than his execution. His style was diffuse, affected, and obscure; but Seneca, who tells us this, and gives some examples which justify the criticism, tells us at the same time that his genius was massive and masculine (grande et virile) , and that he would have been eminent for eloquence, if fortune had not spoiled him. ”

“ His intimacy with Maecenas was strengthened and he had become the familiar friend of the great minister. He was treated with distinction by Augustus, and by the foremost men in Roman society. He complains occasionally that the pleasures of his youth are passing from him, but he does so in the spirit of a temperate Epicurean, who found new enjoyments in life as the zest for the old enjoyments decayed, and who considered the wisdom and meditative spirit—“the philosophic mind that years had brought”—an ample compensation for the extinct fires of his youth. ”

“ In the “Journey to Brundusium,” (Horace, Satires, i. 5) in 37, Maecenas and Cocceius Nerva are described as having been sent on an important mission, and they were successful in patching up, by the Treaty of Tarentum, a reconciliation between the two claimants for supreme power. During the Sicilian war against Sextus Pompeius in 36, Maecenas was sent back to Rome, and was entrusted with supreme administrative control in the city and in Italy. He was vice-gerent of Octavian during the campaign of Actium, when, with great promptness and secrecy, he crushed the conspiracy of the younger Lepidus ”

“ I am not here as a stepping-stone to future fame, but to make money, and to find it for men with distinguished names. The manuscripts for which I give a hundred thousand francs pay me better than work by an unknown author who asks six hundred. If I am not exactly a Maecenas, I deserve the gratitude of literature; I have doubled the prices of manuscripts. I am giving you this explanation because you are a friend of Lousteau’s my boy,” added Dauriat, clapping Lucien on the shoulder with odious familiarity. ”

“ Because it was the effect of judgment, and not mere favour. Maecenas rendered this to him because he adjudged it due to his merit. Hi. And to the same purpose is that which follows : " For He that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is His name." She has said holy instead of glorious. By how much we arrogate to our own merits, by so much we detract from the glory of the divine beingi For, as St. Paul says, " His power is made perfect in our weakness." ”

“ That a keen and confident soul quickens the step? That madness in the soul, or anger (which resembles madness) , hastens our bodily movements from walking to rushing?
And how much more do you think that this affects one's ability, which is entirely interwoven with the soul, – being moulded thereby, obeying its commands, and deriving therefrom its laws! 4. How Maecenas lived is too well-known for present comment. We know how he walked, how effeminate he was, and how he desired to display himself; also, how unwilling he was that his vices should escape notice. ”

“ XLIII. And are you then diligent in doing honour to Caesar's memory? Do you love him even now that he is dead? What greater honour had he obtained than that of having a holy cushion, an image, a temple, and a priest? As then Jupiter, and Mars, and Quirinus have priests, so Marcus Antonius is the priest of the god Julius. Why then do you delay? why are not you inaugurated? Choose a day; select some one to inaugurate you; we are colleagues; no one will refuse O you detestable man, whether you are the priest of a tyrant, or of a dead man! ”

“ When Rome falls may our language and our literature perish with us. May we be utterly forgotten. My verse at least shall escape the pedagogues, for it is licentious; and yours, Crassus, I fear they will scarcely understand across the centuries. But, O Vergilius, the spirit of your poetry, so noble and so pure, is the very thing to be turned into a bed of Procrustes for little Dacians! ”

“ ROMANS.
Lucius, all hail, Rome’s royal emperor!
MARCUS.
Go, go into old Titus’ sorrowful house,
And hither hale that misbelieving Moor
To be adjudged some direful slaught’ring death,
As punishment for his most wicked life.
[Exeunt Attendants. Lucius and Marcus come down from the upper stage.]
ROMANS.
Lucius, all hail, Rome’s gracious governor!
LUCIUS.
Thanks, gentle Romans. May I govern so
To heal Rome’s harms and wipe away her woe!
But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
For nature puts me to a heavy task. ”

“ The fruit that has come of the seed sown is great and abundant. In every corner of the earth are there now those who name the name of Christ. And in every place are there many more, than meet the eye, who read our gospels, believe in them, and rejoice in the virtue and the hope which have taken root in their souls. Here in Rome, O Aurelian, are there multitudes of believers, whom the ear hears not, nor the eye sees, hidden away in the security of this sea of roofs, whom the messengers of your power never could discover. ”

“ Yet, over all his efforts, the preacher sweated blood and water to rival Cicero. In brief, my Roman preacher spoke Roman so well that I heard nothing about the death of Christ. [204] If Cicero had lived in our days,” asks Erasmus, “would he not think the name of God the Father as elegant as Jupiter the almighty? Would he think it less elegant to speak of Jesus Christ than of Romulus, or of Scipio Africanus, of Quintus Curtius, or of Marcus Decius? Would he think the name of the Catholic Church less illustrious than that of ‘Conscript Fathers,’ ‘Quirites,’ or ‘Senate and people of Rome’? ”

“ When you stand in the Roman forum, and see Cicero arise and take into his hands the enchained hearts of his hearers, and play upon them, as the harper sweeps his fingers over the trembling chords of the lyre, till it shouts or laughs or wails, sighs like the zephyr, sings like the seraph, curses like the demon, let your soul also be attuned to the thrilling accents of his divine eloquence. ”

“ To come home to our own country, there are at this day more who dispute the excellence of Cicero than of Virgil. Among the orations of Asinius or Messala [e] , is there one that can vie with the Medea of Ovid, or the Thyestes of Varius?
XIII. If we now consider the happy condition of the true poet, and that easy commerce in which he passes his time, need we fear to compare his situation with that of the boasted orator, who leads a life of anxiety, oppressed by business, and overwhelmed with care? But it is said, his contention, his toil and danger, are steps to the consulship. ”

“ The Latin language, so noble in itself, and dignified, assumes additional majesty in the periods of the Roman Consul, and adds an inexpressible beauty and loftiness to the natural sublimity of his sentiments. No writings, in fact, are so full of moral and intellectual grandeur as those of Cicero, none are more calculated to elevate and purify our nature—to inculcate the tu vero enitere, in the path of knowledge and virtue, and to excite not merely a fond desire, or idle longing, but strenuous efforts after immortality. ”

“ Leave all then, Christian men and women, in the hands of God. Seek not death nor life. Shun not life nor death. Say each, "Here, Lord, is thy servant, do with him as shall seem to thee good."
'And now, Christians, how shall we receive the edict of Aurelian? It silences our preachers, it closes our churches. What now is the duty of the Christians of Rome?'
Soon as this question was proposed by Probus, many voices from various parts of the room gave in their judgments. ”

“ Filled with this passion for the glory of Rome, I here invoke thy spirit now with the Gods, oh deified Augustus; and thy image interwoven in the ensigns, and thy memory, oh deceased father. Let thy revered spirit, oh Augustus, let thy loved image and memory, oh Drusus, still dear to these legions, vindicate them from this guilty stain, this foul infamy of leaving to foreigners the honour of defending and avenging the Roman State. They are Romans; they already feel the remorses of shame; they are already stimulated with a sense of honour: improve, oh improve this generous disposition in them ”