Today’s word of the day, thanks to the Wordsmith’s daily A.Word.A.Day email, is maecenatism. Maecenatism means “Patronage, for example, the support or financial sponsorship provided to artists, musicians, or writers,” according to the email.

The suffix -ism comes from the Greek suffix -ismos, through the Latin -ismum, and the French -isme. “It is used to create abstract nouns of action, state, condition, or doctrine, and is often used to describe philosophies, theories, religions, social movements, artistic movements, lifestyles, behaviors, scientific phenomena, or medical conditions” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ism). So maecenatism is an abstract noun, but where does it come from?

Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (68 BC-8 BC) was a wealthy and influential member of the equestrian class in Rome. He was a member of this second tier of propertied Romans because, despite his being asked, he refused to join the senatorial class by becoming a senator. But as a member of the equestrian class, he provided cavalry to the Roman army and fought in a number of campaigns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Maecenas).

He was also a friend and advisor to Gaius Octavius (63 BC-14 AD). Octavian was the grand nephew of Julius Caesar, and when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, Octavian was named his adopted son and successor. Civil war followed the assassination, and 42 BC Octavian was one of the second triumvirate who ruled the Empire. Eventually, of course, Octavian came to rule the Empire by himself, and he took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. And in the early years of the Empire, Maecenas was one of his inner circle. In 40 BC, Maecenas participated in arranging Octavian’s second marriage to the sister of Sextus Pompey, one of the three members of the second triumvirate, the other being Marc Antony. The purpose of this marriage was to bring Octavian and Pompey closer together, though Scribonia was also the mother of Octavian’s only child (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Triumvirate#Treaties_of_Brundisium_and_Misenum,_40–39_BC). Maecenas was also Octavian’s emissary in the negotiations with Pompey that led to the Treaty of Brundisium. “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” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Maecenas).

As to his personal character there were questions: “the testimony as to his administrative and diplomatic ability was unanimous. He enjoyed the credit of sharing largely in the establishment of the new order of things, of reconciling parties, and of carrying the new empire safely through many dangers. To his influence especially were attributed the more humane policies of Octavian after his first alliance with Antony and Lepidus. The best summary of his character as a man and a statesman, by Marcus Velleius Paterculus, describes him as “of sleepless vigilance in critical emergencies, far-seeing and knowing how to act, but in his relaxation from business more luxurious and effeminate than a woman.” Expressions in the Odes of Horace seem to imply that Maecenas was deficient in the robustness of fibre which Romans liked to imagine was characteristic of their city” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Maecenas).

But what made Maecenas worthy to be remembered was not his political activity or about his penchant for entertainment; it was his support for artists, particularly for poets. He was a patron of Publius Vergilius Maro, known today as Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, the epic poem that took off from the ending of Homer’s Iliad and narrated the journey of Aeneas from the burning city of Troy to the founding of Rome. Virgil dedicated another one of his works, the Georgics, to Maecenas.

In 38, Virgil introduced Maecenas to Quintus Horatius Flaccus, today known as Horace. Horace would become the poet of the Empire, writing during the transition from Republic to Empire. He is also considered by some to be the world’s first autobiographer, telling us more about himself than about the things he is supposedly writing about (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace). Horace addressed Maecenas in the first of his Odes.

There were other poets patronized by Maecenas, though they are mostly forgotten except by classicists. And the Roman historian Suetonius says that Maecenas fell out of favor with Octavian later in his life. But he used his wealth not only for his own reputation but to support the literary arts in his time. Thus his name has become synonymous with patronage.

Today’s image is from “C. W. King, Handbook of Engraved Gems (2nd ed.; 1885) (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t8rb76g72&seq=305). Page 30. Frog; the seal-device of Mecaenas. If Isaac Taylor be right in interpreting his Etruscan, name, MAIKNE, as Frog-man (analogous to the Italian Ranuccio), the great statesman had put in his seal a rebus on his name.” The frog seal is found engraved on a gem.