368 On the Flower -Gardens of the Ancients. 



horius is always put for a farm or a villa. The third sort of 

 hortus was devoted to the cultivation of those flowers which 

 were used at festivals and ceremonies, and for similar special 

 purposes. Such were the "biferi rosaria P<esti," and gar- 

 dens of this sort surrounded the city to supply the markets. 

 It is to these three species of horti alone that modern authors 

 refer, but there are many allusions in the classics, shewing 

 that the Romans had flower-gardens for pleasure as well as 

 utility. Such were the "delicati horti" the "venusti hortu- 

 IV of private individuals, which we read of in Tibullus, Phae- 

 drus, Martial, and other authors who occasionally refer to the 

 domestic manners of the Romans. If they cultivated their 

 flowers for the purposes alluded to, a single dinner-party or a 

 few chaplets would have stripped bare the whole garden. 



As as example of such allusions, Tibullus compares the 

 surpassing excellence of a beautiful woman to that of a hya- 

 cinth over the other flowers of a garden : — 



" Talis in rario solet 



" Divitis domini hortulo 



" Stare flos hyacinthinus." — Carm. 61 . 



Again, in another song, (20) : — 



" Mihi corolla picta vere ponitur, 

 " Mihi rubens arista soli fervido, 

 " Mihi virente dulcis uva pampino, 

 " Mihique glauca duro oliva frigore." 



The same garden supplying fruit in the autumn, and a varie- 

 gated banquet in the spring. 



There was always a statue of Priapus in the centre, as he 

 was the tutelary deity of gardening among the Romans : (Vir- 

 gil, Geor. iv., Martial, viii. 40 : &c.) And the principal flow- 

 ers mentioned are narcissuses, violets, hyacinths and lilies, 

 under which name many different plants are included. 



The citizens of Rome used to cultivate plants in the balco- 

 nies of their houses, (Hor. I. Ep. x. &c.) ; and to rear flowers 

 in boxes and flower-pots, which were called ''Horti imagina- 

 nariV (Pliny). It is not likely that the rich would do this, 

 merely to procure materials for their votive offerings, or to 

 supply the ornaments for their entertainments, when these 

 could be easily purchased at the public markets. It shews 

 that a taste for their cultivation as objects of amusement, did 

 prevail, which followed them even amidst the "fumum, et opes, 

 strepitumque Romae." 



There are also small garden-grounds attached to the houses 

 in many of the streets of Herculaneum, which, from their size 

 and their position in a great city, could not have been used 

 either for the cultivation of the festal flowers or of esculent 



