Gaius Maecenas Melissus (; fl. 1st century AD) was one of the

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...

Gaius Maecenas Gaius Cilnius Maecenas ( – 8 BC) was a friend and political advisor to Octavian (who later reigned as emperor Augustus). He was also an important patron for the new generation of Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil. During the rei ...

, the noted

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

Augustan patron of the arts. His primary importance for

Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...

is that he invented his own form of

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

known as the "''fabula trabeata''" (tales of the knights). The genre did not prove particularly popular outside of his own work, but Melissus also put together compilations of

joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

suggests that there were one hundred and fifty such compilations. Contemporary scholarship also suggests that he may have been quoted in

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

's ''Natural History'' and may have been a grammarian as well, although none of his original works have survived.

References

*Brown, Peter George McCarthy. "Maecenas Melissus, Gaius" in Hornblower, Simon and Antony Spawforth eds. ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'' (3rd ed., 2005). London:

OUP Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. p. 908. {{DEFAULTSORT:Melissus, Gaius Maecenas Roman-era inhabitants of Italy Roman-era poets Ancient Roman comic dramatists Golden Age Latin writers Latin writers known only from secondary sources 1st-century Romans Gaius Maecenas