The confidence which the Emperor reposed in him is shown by his employing him in some affairs of great delicacy: first, in arranging a marriage with Scribonia; and, subsequently, on two occasions, in negotiating with Antony.[678] In B. C. 36, he accompanied Octavius into Sicily; but was sent back in order to undertake the administration of Rome and Italy;[679] and during the campaign at Actium,[680] Mæcenas was again vicegerent, in which capacity he crushed the conspiracy of the younger Lepidus. So unlimited was his power, that he was even intrusted with the signet of Octavius, and with authority to open, and even to alter, if necessary, all letters which he wrote to the senate during his campaign; and when the victorious general, on his return to Rome, consulted with him and Agrippa as to the expediency of re-establishing the republic, Mæcenas, in opposition to the recommendation of Agrippa, dissuaded him from taking that step. The moral influence also of Mæcenas over Augustus is very striking. So long as it continued, we see nothing of that heartless cruelty, that disregard of the happiness of others, which deformed the early life of the Emperor: if he was heartless, he at least did that as a matter of taste which a better man would have done on principle; and if he was still selfish, he sought fame and glory by the wise counsels of peace rather than by the brilliant triumphs of war: he conciliated friends instead of crushing enemies. The intimacy between Mæcenas and the Emperor continued for at least ten years after the battle of Actium: then an estrangement commenced; and in B. C. 16, he was deprived of his official position, and Taurus was intrusted with the administration of Rome and Italy. Scandalous stories have been told about his wife Terentia and the Emperor, in order to account for the interruption of their intimacy; but no special causes are necessary to account for an event so common. The words of Tacitus[681] are a sufficient solution of the problem:—“Idque et Mæcenati acciderat; fato potentiæ, raro sempiternæ, an satias capit, aut illos, cum omnia tribuerunt, aut hos, cum jam nihil reliquum est, quod cupiant.” He retained the outward appearance of the imperial friendship, although he had lost the reality. He went to court on the birth-day, but ceased to be of the Emperor’s council. His life was passed in the voluptuous retirement of his palace on the Esquiline, which he had built for himself. This hill was not generally considered wholesome: probably the fact that it had been a burial-ground[682] created a prejudice against it; but the loftiness of the site chosen, as well as of the building itself (_molem vicinam nubibus_,) and the breeze which played freely through the lovely garden with which it was surrounded, rendered it salubrious. All the most brilliant society of Rome was found at his table; and many of the best of them received still more substantial