The New International Encyclopædia/Augustan Age

AUGUS′TAN AGE. The period of highest literary activity in Rome, under the patronage of Augustus and his adviser Mæcenas. At that time the Latin language was in its perfection, and men of letters were held in the highest honor. It was the period of Vergil, Horace, and Ovid. [See Sellar, Roman Poets of the Augustan Age (Oxford, 1886).] The term ‘Augustan Age’ is also extended to apply to other periods of literary brilliancy, as the age of Addison, Swift, and Steele, in England, and Louis XIV.'s reign in France.