DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 37 



the object of contemplation, we can not mistake the indica- 

 tions of a true poetic inspiration. 



We would gladly instance the pleasantly-situated villas on 

 the Pincian Hill, at Tusculum and Tibur, on the promontory 

 of Misenum, and at Puteoli and Baiae, as proofs of a love of 

 nature among the Romans, had not these buildings, like those 

 of Scaurus and Maecenas, of Lucullus and Adrian, been over- 

 stocked with edifices designed for pomp and display ; temples, 

 theaters, and race-courses alternating with aviaries, and houses 

 for rearing snails and dormice. The elder Scipio had sur- 

 rounded his simpler country house at Liturnum with towers 

 in the castellated style. The name of Matius, a friend of Au 

 gustus, has come down to us as that of the person who, in his 

 love for unnatural stiffness, first caused trees to be cut in imi- 

 tation of architectural and plastic patterns. The letters of 

 the younger Pliny give us a charming description of two of 

 his numerous villas, Laurentinum and Tusculum.* Although, 

 in these two buildings, surrounded by cut box-trees, we meet 

 with a greater number of objects crowded together than we, 

 with our ideas of nature, would esteem in accordance with 

 good taste, yet these descriptions, as well as the imitation of 

 the Valley of Tempe in the Tiburtine villa of Adrian, show 

 us that a love for the free enjoyment of nature was not whol- 

 ly lost sight of by the Roman citizens in their love of art, and 

 in their anxious solicitude for their personal comfort in adapt- 

 ing the locality of their country houses to the prevailing rela- 

 tions of the sun and winds. It is gratifying to be able to add 

 that this enjoyment was less disturbed on the estates of Pliny 

 than elsewhere by the revolting features of slavery. This 

 wealthy man was not only one of the most learned of his age, 



* Pliu., Epist., ii., 17; v., 6; ix., 17; Plin., Hist. Nat., xii., 6; Hirt, 

 Gesch. der Baukunst bei den Alten, bd. ii., s. 241, 291, 376. The villa 

 Laurentina of the younger Pliny was situated near the present Torre di 

 Paterno, in the littoral valley of Palombara, east of Ostia. See Viaggio 

 da Ostia a la villa di Plinio, 1802, p. 9, and Le Laurentin, by Haudel- 

 court, 1838, p. 62. A deep feeling for nature is expressed in the few 

 lines which Pliny wrote from Laurentinum to Minutius Fundanus : 

 " Mecum tantum et cum libellis loquor. Rectam sinceramque vitam ! 

 dulce otium honestumque ! O mare, o lilttts, verum secretumque [lovneiuv ! 

 quam multa invenitis, quam multa dictatis !" (i., 9). Hirt was persuad- 

 ed that the origin in Italy, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 

 of that stiff and systematic style of gardening long known as the French, 

 in contradistinction to the freer mode of landscape gardening of the 

 English, and the early taste for wearisome and regular lines, is to be 

 ascribed to a wish of imitating that which Pliny the younger has de- 

 scribed in his letters (Geschichte der Baukunst bei den Alten, th. ii., a 

 .366). * 



