A ROMAN bust from Arezzo in Tuscany has for the first time been identified as that of Maecenas, celebrated patron of the arts at the time of the Emperor Augustus and one of the most influential and powerful figures of the early Roman Empire.
Professor Bernard Andreae, former head of the German Archeological Insitute in Rome, said he had compared the bust with a bas relief on the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) in Rome, which was reopened to the public in April, housed in a controversial new museum designed by Richard Meier.
Professor Andreae said the bust, preserved at the National Museum in Arezzo, bore a clear resemblance to a portrait on the Ara Pacis traditionally held to be that of Maecenas, who was a diplomat and adviser to Augustus, as well as the wealthy and well-connected patron of such poets as Horace and Virgil.
He said a companion bust of a woman in the Arezzo collection almost certainly depicted Terenzia (Terentia in Latin), Maecenas’s wife. According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio her curly hair was much admired by the Emperor, who later became her lover.
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The two busts are being displayed in a temporary exhibition at the German Academy at the Villa Massimo in Rome. Joachim Blüher, director of the German Academy, said the discovery meant that “we can finally put a face to one of the most important names in the classical world”.
The busts were found 100 metres apart in excavations in Arezzo during the last century, the woman’s head coming to light in 1925 and the man’s head in 1957. The woman was at one time thought to be Livia, Augustus’s wife, and the man either her son, Drusus, or Agrippa, the emperor’s military and strategic adviser.
Professor Andreae said the bust did not resemble known portraits of either Drusus or Agrippa, however, whereas it did resemble the Ara Pacis portrait. Its origins in Arezzo were also conclusive, since although Maecenas was born in Rome in April 65BC, he came from a well-known family at Arezzo (Arretium), the Cilnii.
He said the bust showed Maecenas to have been “intelligent but reserved” with “large eyes and a subtle mouth — a complex personality”. Maecenas is regarded as the archetypal patron of the arts, and the Italian version of his name — mecenate — is used to this day in modern Italy to mean “patron” or “sponsor”.
He sought to use the genius of the poets of the day to glorify the new imperial regime, persuading Virgil and Horace to take up themes of public interest. Among other masterpieces he inspired Virgil’s Georgics and many of Horace’s odes.
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He originally owed his position and influence to his key role in Augustus’s political and military rise to power, at one stage even foiling an assassination plot. In his early career the future emperor — then Octavian, the nephew of Julius Caesar and his appointed heir — relied on Maecenas and Agrippa to administer Rome while he fought his rivals in civil wars, defeating Sextus Pompey in 36BC and then Mark Antony in 31BC.
Professor Andreae said the bust had probably been made about 20BC, when Maecenas was 45 and at the height of his fame and influence as Augustus’s right-hand man. He divorced Terenzia four years later in 16BC, apparently because of her affair with the Emperor.
Not surprisingly this cooled Maecenas’s relationship with Augustus, but did not dent his loyalty to the emperor. Maecenas left his property to Augustus when he died in AD8, including his magnificent palace and gardens on the Esquiline Hill.