B? THE ROMANS. 23 



like those in which were the villas of Scaurus and Maecenas, 

 Lucullus and Adrian, been crowded with sumptuous build- 

 ings temples, theatres, and race-courses alternating with 

 aviaries and houses for rearing snails and dormice. The 

 elder Scipio had surrounded his more simple country seat 

 at Liturnum with , tower? like a fortress. The name of 

 Matius, a friend of Augustus, has been handed down to us 

 as that of the individual whose predilection for unnatural 

 constraint first introduced the custom of cutting and training 

 trees into artificial imitations of architectural and plastic 

 models. The letters of the younger Pliny furnish us with 

 pleasing descriptions of two ( 38 j of his numerous villas, 

 Laurentinum and Tuscum. Although buildings, surrounded 

 by box cut into artificial forms, are more numerous and 

 crowded than our taste for nature would lead u*. to desire, 

 yet these descriptions, as well as the imitation of the Vale 

 of Tempe in the Tiburtine villa of Adrian, shew us that 

 among the inhabitants of the imperial city, the love of 

 art, and the solicitous care for comfort and convenience 

 manifested in the choice of the positions of their country 

 houses with reference to the sun and to the prevailing 

 winds, might be associated with love for the free enjoyment 

 of nature. It is cheering to be able to add, that on the 

 estates of Pliny this enjoyment was less disturbed than 

 elsewhere by the painful features of slavery. The wealthy 

 proprietor was not only one of the most learned men of his 

 period, but he had also those compassionate and truly 

 humane feelings for the lower classes of the people who were 

 not in the enjoyment of freedom, of which the expression at 

 least is most rare in antiquity. At his villas fetters were 

 unused ; and he provided that the slave, as a cultivator of 



