Gaius Maecenas

Gaius Cilnius Maecenas was born on 13 April 68 BC and grew into the role of friend and political advisor to Octavian, the man who would become emperor Augustus. Despite wealth and proximity to power, he declined to enter the Senate, keeping his equestrian rank while functioning as a quasi-culture minister to the new regime. What secured his afterlife was his patronage: he backed the rising generation of Augustan poets, Horace and Virgil among them, and funded the verse that would define the age. He died in 8 BC, but the support he gave outlasted marble — his name became shorthand for anyone wh…