Biography
Expressions in Propertius seem to imply that Maecenas had taken some part in the campaigns of Mutina, Philippi and Perugia. He prided himself on his ancient Etruscan lineage, and claimed descent from the princely house of the Cilnii, who excited the jealousy of their townsmen by their preponderant wealth and influence at Arretium in the 4th century BC. Horace makes reference to this in his address to Maecenas at the opening of his first books of Odes with the expression "atavis edite regibus" (descendant of kings). Tacitus refers to him as "Cilnius Maecenas"; it is possible that "Cilnius" was his mother's nomen - or that Maecenas was in fact a cognomen.
The Gaius Maecenas mentioned in Cicero as an influential member of the equestrian order in 91 BC may have been his grandfather, or even his father. The testimony of Horace and Maecenas's own literary tastes imply that he had profited by the highest education of his time.
His great wealth may have been in part hereditary, but he owed his position and influence to his close connection with the Emperor Augustus. He first appears in history in 40 BC, when he was employed by Octavian in arranging his marriage with Scribonia, and afterwards in assisting to negotiate the treaty of Brundisium and the reconciliation with Mark Antony. As a close friend and advisor he acted even as deputy for Augustus when he was abroad.
It was in 39 BC that Horace was introduced to Maecenas, who had before this received Lucius Varius Rufus and Virgil into his intimacy. In the "Journey to Brundisium," in 37, Maecenas and Marcus Cocceius Nerva - great-grandfather of the future emperor 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 vicegerent of Octavian during the campaign that led to the battle of Actium, when, with great promptness and secrecy, he crushed the conspiracy of Lepidus the Younger; during the subsequent absences of his chief in the provinces he again held the same position.
During the latter years of his life he fell somewhat out of favour with his master. Suetonius attributes the loss of the imperial favour to Maecenas' having indiscreetly revealed to Terentia, his beautiful but difficult wife, the discovery of the conspiracy in which her brother Lucius Lucinius Varro Murena was implicated, but according to Dio Cassius it was due to the emperor's relations with Terentia. Maecenas died in 8 BC, leaving the emperor sole heir to his wealth.
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