Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus - Patronage and Writings

Patronage and Writings

His influence on literature, which he encouraged after the manner of Maecenas, was considerable, and the group of literary persons whom he gathered round him—including Tibullus, Lygdamus and the poet Sulpicia--has been called "the Messalla circle." With Horace and Tibullus he was on intimate terms, and Ovid expresses his gratitude to him as the first to notice and encourage his work.’ The two panegyrics by unknown authors (one printed among the poems of Tibullus as iv. 1; the other included in the Catalepton, the collection of small poems attributed to Virgil) indicate the esteem in which he was held.

Messalla was himself the author of various works, all of which are lost. They included Memoirs of the civil wars after the death of Caesar, used by Suetonius and Plutarch; bucolic poems in Greek; translations of Greek speeches; occasional satirical and erotic verses; essays on the minutiae of grammar.

As an orator, he followed Cicero instead of the Atticizing school, but his style was affected and artificial. Later critics considered him superior to Cicero, and Tiberius adopted him as a model.

Late in life he wrote a work on the great Roman families, wrongly identified with an extant poem De progenie Augusti Caesaris which bears the name of Messalla, but in fact is a 12th-century production.