CLASSIC PLEASURE GROUNDS 3 



relinquished by the Romans in Italy, and hardly less 

 carefully finished, though on a somewhat smaller scale. 

 In Great Britain, the contemporary description of 

 Tacitus relates that, even before the close of the first 

 century, there were plantations of luxuriant vegetation. 

 The olive and the vine seem to have been the only 

 fruits for which he considered the climate unsuitable. 

 Later, however, there were vineyards, and, when the Horticulture 



under the 



Romans were at the height of their power, almost every Romans in 

 kind of fruit now cultivated in Northern Europe, with 

 the exception of pine-apples, gooseberries, currants, and 

 raspberries, is said to have flourished. Thirty-eight 

 Anglo-Saxon and English names of plants are dis- 

 tinctly of Roman origin, among them the rose, lily, 

 poppy, mallow, laurel, mulberry, and feverfew. 



Unfortunately, no equally interesting records of the 

 architecture in Britanno-Roman gardens have been 

 handed down to us. But we can form some idea of 

 the extent of ground covered with lavishly ornamented 

 plantations from the general outlines of the villas and 

 from the elegance of the architectural remains exca- 

 vated on their sites. Statues, vases, and fountains of 

 marble and bronze, almost as fine as those in Italy, have 

 not infrequently been discovered. Numbers of the most 

 remarkable of these relics are on exhibition in the Brit- 

 ish Museum and elsewhere. Others remain in situ. 



Mosaic pavements, formerly ornamenting the living 



