This person’s name has long become a household word. For the past two thousand years, “Mecenates” (patrons) have been used to describe people who selflessly and generously support talented poets, writers, artists, architects, sculptors, and musicians. Thanks to their kindness and care, brilliant works of literature and art are created. But when we talk about such people, we most often forget about the man who gave them his name — Gaius Cilnius Mecenate, who lived in Ancient Rome in the 1st century BC and was a close associate of Emperor Octavian Augustus and a patron of the greatest Roman poets: Horace, Virgil, and Propertius. It is precisely about him that this book tells, written based on a meticulous and complete analysis of all surviving sources.