THE ROMAN GARDEN IN ENGLAND 



The village of Laurentium where Pliny built his villa 

 was on the shores of the Tuscan Sea, and not far from 

 the mouth of the Tiber. The villa was built as a refuge 

 after a hard day's work in Rome, which was only seven- 

 teen miles away. " A distance," he says, " which 

 allows us, after we have finished the business of the 

 day, to return thither from town, with the setting sun." 



There were two roads from Rome to this villa, the 

 one the Laurentine road — " if you go the Laurentine 

 you must quit the high road at the fourteenth stone " — 

 and the Ostian road, where the branch took place at the 

 eleventh. 



After a description of the house and the baths he 

 writes of the garden : 



" At no great distance is the tennis-court, so situated, 

 as never to be annoyed by the heat, and to be visited 

 only by the setting sun. At the end of the tennis- 

 court rises a tower, containing two rooms at the top 

 of it, and two again under them ; besides a banqueting 

 room, from whence there is a view of very wide ocean, 

 a very extensive continent, and numberless beautiful 

 villas interspersed upon the shore. Answerable to this 

 is another turret containing, on the top, one single room 

 where we enjoy both the rising and the setting sun. 

 Underneath is a very large store-room for fruit, and a 

 granary, and under these again a dining-room from 

 whence, even when the sea is most tempestuous, we 

 only hear the roaring of it, and that but languidly and 

 at a distance. It looks upon the garden, and the place 

 for exercise which encludes my garden. The whole is 

 encompassed with Box ; and where that is wanting 

 with Rosemary ; for Box, when sheltered by buildings, 

 will nourish very well, but wither immediately if ex- 

 posed to wind and weather, or ever so distantly affected 

 by the moist dews from the sea. The place for exercise 



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