The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

LIFE OF MJICENAS.
(SMITH'S DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY, &o.)
M^cENAS, C. CiLNius. Of the life of Mseoenas we must be con-
tent to glean what scattered notices we can from the poets and his-
torians of Rome, since it does not appear to have been formally recorded
by any ancient author. We are totally in the dark both as
to the date and place of his birth, and the manner of his education.
It is most probable, however, that he was born some time between
B.C. 73 and 63 ; and we learn from Horace {Ode iv., 11) that his
birth-day was the 13th of April. His family, though belonging only
to the equestrian order, was of high antiquity and honor, and traced
its descent from the Lucumones of Etruria. The scholiast on Horace
{Ode i., 1) informs us that he numbered Porsena among his ancestors
; and his authority is in some measure confirmed by a fragment
of one of Augustus's letters to Mseoenas, preserved by Maorobius
(Sat. ii., 4), in which he is addressed as " berylk Porsena." His
paternal ancestors, the Cilnii, are mentioned by Livy (x., 3, 5) as
having attained to so high a pitch of power and wesilth at Arretium,
about the middle of the fiilh century of Rome, as to excite the jealousy
and hatred of their fellow-citizens, who rose against and expelled
them ; and it was not vrithout considerable difficulty that they
were at length restored to their country, through the interference of
the Romans. The maternal branch of the family was likewise of
Etruscan origin, and it was from them that the name of Mseoenas
was derived, it being customary among the Etruscans to assume the
mother's as well as the father's name {Miiller, Etrusker, ii., p. 404)
It is in allusion to this circumstance that Horace ^Sat. i., 6, 3) men-
tions both his avus maternus atque patermis as having been distinguished
by commanding numerous lemons, a passage, by the way,
from which we are not to infer that the ancestors of Msecenas had
ever led the legions of Rome. Their name does not appear in the
Fasti Consulares ; and it s manifest, from several passages of Latin
authors, that the word Ugio is not always restricted to a Moman
legion. (See Liv., x., ; 5 Sail., Cat,, 53, &c.) The first notice
that occurs of any of the family, as a citizen of Rome, is in Cicero's
speech for Cluentius {§ 55), where a knight named C. MsBoenas is
mentioned among the robora populi Eomani, and as having been instrumental
in putting down the conspiracy of the tribune M. Livius
Drusus, B.C. 91. This person has been generally considered the
father of the snbieot of this memoir, but Frandsen, in his life of
.