CHAPTER II. 



LUXURIOUS USE OF THE ROSE. 



HE arfcients possessed, at a very early period^ 

 IY\ the luxury of roses, and the Romans brought 

 it to perfection by covering with beds of these 

 flowers the couches whereon their guests 

 were placed, and even the tables which were 

 used for banquets ;' while some emperors 

 went so far as to scatter them in the halls 

 of their palace. At Rome, they were, at one time, brought from 

 Egypt, in that part of the year when Italy could not produce 

 them ; but afterwards, in order to render these luxuries more 

 easily attainable during the winter, by the leaders of the ton in 

 that capital city of the world's empire, their gardeners found the 

 means of producing, in green-houses warmed by means of pipes 

 filled with hot water, an artificial temperature, which kept roses 

 and lilies in bloom until the last of the year. Seneca declaimed, 

 with a show of ridicule, against these improvements ;* but, 

 without being discouraged by the reasoning of the philosophery 

 the Romans carried their green-houses to such perfection, that, 

 at length, during the reign of Domitian, when the Egyptians 



1 " Tempora subtilius pinguntur tecta coronis, 



Et latent injecta splendida mensa Rosa." (Ovid, lib. v.) 



2 " Non vivunt contra naturam, qui hieme concupiscunt Rosam 1 Fomentoque 

 aquarum calentium, et calorum apta imitatione, bruma lilium florem vernum, 

 exprimunt." {Seneca, epistle 122-8.) 



