Mæce´nas (Caius Cilnius), a wealthy Roman nobleman, a friend of Augustus, and liberal patron of Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and other men of genius. His name has become proverbial for a “munificent friend of literature” (died B.C. 8).
Are you not called a theatrical quidnunc and a mock Mæcēnas to second-hand authors?—Sheridan, The Critic, i. (1779).
Mæ´nad, a Bacchant, plu. Mænads or Mæ´nades (3 syl.). So called from the Greek, mainomai (“to be furious”), because they acted like mad women in their “religious” festivals.
Among the boughs did swelling Bacchus ride,
Whom wild-grown Mænads bore.
Phin. Fletcher, The Purple Island, vii. (1633).
Mæon´ides (4 syl.). Homer is so called, either because he was son of Mæon, or because he was a native of Mæon´ia (Lydia). He is also called Mæonius Senex, and his poems Mænonian Lays.
When great Mæonides, in rapid song,
The thundering tide of battle rolls along,
Each ravished bosom feels the high alarms,