literary patronage

In Greece, literary patronage was exercised among others by the tyrants of Corinth (see CYPSELUS), Athens (see PEISISTRATUS), Samos (see POLYCRATES), and Sicily (see HIERON), who supported at their courts the poets Alcman, Anacreon, Bacchylidēs, Pindar, and Simonidēs. Archelaus, king of Macedon at the end of the fifth century BC, invited Agathon, Timotheus, and Euripidēs to his court. In the same century the city of Athens itself with its musical festivals and commissions for temple decoration and other works of art offered the advantages of patronage, and there were wealthy Athenian aristocrats giving hospitality to philosophers and teachers (see SOPHISTS). Similarly, in the Hellenistic age the kings of Egypt, the Ptolemies, were great supporters of all the arts, rivalled by the Attalids, kings of Pergamum.

At Rome, literary patronage was an extension of the relationship between patron and client, and even included Greek writers. Under the empire Augustus and many later emperors were patrons of literature, as were wealthy individuals such as Maecenas and the Younger Pliny. Among those benefiting were Virgil, Horace, Statius, and Martial.