Rome's Patron: The Lives and Afterlives of Maecenas

The story of Maecenas and his role in the evolution and continuing legacy of ancient Roman poetry and culture

An unelected statesman with exceptional powers, a patron of the arts and a luxury-loving friend of the emperor Augustus: Maecenas was one of the most prominent and distinctive personalities of ancient Rome. Yet the traces he left behind are unreliable and tantalizingly scarce. Rather than attempting a conventional biography, Emily Gowers shows in Rome’s Patron that it is possible to ...