574 GARDENS OF VARIOUS NATIONS. 



of brilliant flower-gardens, they inform us by their writings with what 

 care were kept their sacred groves. In them grew various kinds 

 of trees, even fruit-trees as well as ornamental and odoriferous plants. 

 With this people trees and plants were intimately associated with 

 their religion ; and the gods were considered to be ever ready to 

 avenge any injury inflicted on the trees or shrubs sacred to them. 

 At Scillus, on the road from Lacedaemon to Olympia, Xenophon tells 

 us, was the site of the temple of Diana ; where there was " a grove of 

 cultivated trees bearing whatever fruits were eatable in the different 

 seasdns." Pausanias writes of a grove attached to the temple of Diana 

 where various fruit-trees were grown. The same author also describes 

 a grove attached to the temple of ^Esculapius at Athens as being " most 

 beautifully planted with trees," and which " is no less delectable for the 

 sweet smell which it exhales than for the pleasant spectacles which 

 it affords." And Sophocles makes the grove of Colonos famous in 

 the Chorus of the " CEdipus Coloneus," in which the following words 

 are put into the mouth of Antigone: "But this spot here is 

 consecrated, as one may certainly conclude, all full with the bay, 

 the olive, the vine, while within it dense flocks of winged nightingales 

 are singing sweetly." Sacred groves were in other countries besides 

 Greece. Pindar sings the praises of the one at Pisa. Strabo gives 

 an account of the grove of Acanthus, which was situated above 

 Memphis at the base of the low Libyan hills. Then there was 

 another between the Nile and Abydos, which was sacred to Apollo. 

 Pliny the Elder speaks of a grove consecrated by the people of. 

 Latium to Diana, which was situated on a hill called Corne, near 

 to Tusculum. This grove, he says, existed from time immemorial, 

 and consisted of beeches, the foliage of which had the appearance 

 of being trimmed by art. And many other groves there were, among 

 which the Druidical ones hold a conspicuous place. 



Let us now, however, see what knowledge the Romans had of 

 horticulture, and what the distinctive feature of their gardens was. 

 In a letter of Pliny the Younger is such a full and admirable descrip- 

 tion of his villa and garden at Tusculum, which was under one of 



