Mecaenas
Family: Roman · Role: friend · First appears: Augustus 66
In Augustus 66, Mecaenas was a friend of Augustus, who sometimes complained that he was “a tattler.” Mecaenas was married to Terentia and confidentially imparted to her the discovery of Muraena’s conspiracy. In the account of Horatius Flaccus, Augustus offered him a secretaryship through Mecaenas; Horatius Flaccus refused, and Augustus neither showed displeasure nor ceased to show him regard. The same account says that Mecaenas loved Horatius Flaccus.
In Nero 38, Nero beheld the fire from a tower in Mecaenas’s house. In Grammarians 21, Caius Melissus, finding himself valued and treated as a friend by Mecaenas, preferred to remain in servitude.
Relationship record
Life events
- Mecaenas confidentially revealed Muraena’s conspiracy to Terentia.(Augustus 66)
- Augustus offered Horatius Flaccus a secretaryship, but Horatius refused the office.(Horace · 📍 the palace)
- With: Augustus Horatius Flaccus
- “Augustus offered to appoint him his secretary, signifying his wishes to Mecaenas in a letter to the following effect: ‘Hitherto I have been able to write my own epistles to friends; but now I am too much occupied, and in an infirm state of health. I wish, therefore, to deprive you of our Horace: let him leave, therefore, your luxurious table and come to the palace, and he shall assist me in writing my letters.’ And upon his refusing to accept the office, he neither exhibited the smallest displeasure, nor ceased to heap upon him tokens of his regard.”
Augustus 66
- friends with Augustus “The rest of his friends of all orders flourished during their whole lives, both in power and wealth, in the highest ranks of their several orders, notwithstanding some occasional lapses. For, to say nothing of others, he sometimes complained that Agrippa was hasty, and Mecaenas a tattler;”
- married with Terentia “and the latter having confidentially imparted to his wife Terentia the discovery of Muraena’s conspiracy.”
Augustus 86
- friends with Augustus “He sometimes indulged himself in jesting, particularly with his friend Mecaenas, whom he rallied upon all occasions for his fine phrases, and bantered by imitating his way of talking.”
Nero 38
- with Nero (Nero watched the fire from a tower in Mecaenas's house.) “This fire he beheld from a tower in the house of Mecaenas”
Grammarians 21
- friends with Caius Melissus “Finding himself valued and treated as a friend, he preferred to continue in his state of servitude”
Horace
- friends with Horatius Flaccus “And first, how much Mecaenas loved him may be seen by the epigram in which he says:”
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Extracted from the original text of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Made with Rho MD.