Abstract
The most outstanding literary patrons of the “Age of Augustus” are considered to be Maecenas, Messalla Corvinus and Asinius Pollio. They all acted as “centers of attraction” in the Roman literary sphere, but researchers assess their activities differently. Maecenas was among the very fi rst supporters of Octavian and subsequently held a high position in the state. The poets of his circle, fi rst of all Virgil and Horace, and to a lesser extent the elegist Propertius, gained fame as the “heralds” of the new Augustan “regime”, and Maecenas himself is traditionally assigned a key role in the transformations that the literary patronage experienced under Augustus. The result of these changes was expressed in historiographic terms such as the “state” or “court” patronage. In turn, there are Messalla Corvinus and Asinius Pollio, opposed to Maecenas. According to a number of historians, they patronized men of letters based on their own interests, that is, continued to act within the framework of the “traditional” literary patronage, thus remaining independent of the infl uence of Augustus. They gathered around themselves the poets, whose works were to different extents aside from the political agenda set by the princeps. The personality of Mecenas himself, as well as the poetic “circle” associated with his name, were not deprived of the attention of the authors of both specialized and more general works. At the same time, we still know practically nothing about the “independent circles” of Messalla and Pollio. The subject of special interest should be the latter, which has not been previously examined in historiography and does not have such a “foundation” as the Corpus Tibullianum can be for the “circle” of Messalla Corvinus. It is the possibility of the existence of an “independent” poetic “circle” around Pollio at one of the stages of his career – Pollio’s stay in Transpadane Gaul – that is considered in this article. In the course of the research, the author comes to the conclusion that in 42-39/8 BC, an independent literary “circle”, which was associated with the personality of Asinius alone, could really exist around Pollio, – the last major poets’ association of the outgoing republican era. It included such poets as Cornelius Gallus, Virgil, and Parthenius of Nicaea. At the same time, Pollio should be considered more likely as the organizational leader of the association, whereas the creative leadership belonged to Parthenius, who had a great infl uence on the poets, later to become part of the “circle”, even before the appearance of Pollio in Gaul.
Keywords
Roman history, literary patronage, Roman literature, poetry “circles”, Asinius Pollio, Virgil, Cornelius Gallus, Parthenius of Nicaea, Cinna, Maecenas.
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