independent pedestals. Other statuettes and terminal figures are set 

 about the garden, and some attempt has been made even to restore the 

 box-bordered beds, which are planted with flowers. 



In the small garden of the house of Lucretius we find a niche 

 encrusted with mosaic and shell-work, where stands a Silenus from whose 

 wine-skin the water is issuing. In front of the niche, five marble steps 

 form a miniature cascade, the water from which is conducted along 

 a shallow channel to a circular fountain-basin. All round are placed 

 statuettes, terminal figures, animals, and birds. In this and other 

 gardens Bacchus, with bacchantes and satyrs, figures largely. Occa- 

 sionally the sculpture is quite good, but more often it shows a marked 

 inferiority, though always interesting and in keeping with its environ- 

 ment. 



In these gardens fountains naturally play an important part, and occa- 

 sionally, as in the Casa del Balcone Pensile, the garden is so restricted 

 (being not more than ten feet square) that little room is left for anything 

 besides the amorino and its accompanying tazza. 



Among the wall-paintings at Pompei a few pictures of gardens 

 appear. These show beds of flowers and fruit-trees enclosed with reed- 

 fences, such as are used about Naples to-day, arbours and pergole of trellis- 

 work covered with vines and creepers, fountains, statues, pavilions, and 

 aviaries ; in every case tame or wild fowl are depicted perching among 

 the trees or strutting in the foreground. 



That topiary work was to be found in these small gardens there can 

 be no doubt, for was not the topiarius classed among the higher slaves ? 

 It was the necessity of keeping shrubs within bounds that first led men 

 to clip trees into various shapes. At no great distance from Pompei, on 

 the outskirts of a small town, more than one of the gardens has just 

 such figures cut in box as those described by Pliny as existing in his 

 own villas. Doubtless the tradition of this adjunct to the gardening art 

 has been handed down through the generations. 



With the invasion of the barbarians and the fall of the Empire, 

 the pleasant country life came to an end, and for long centuries the 

 art of gardening was barely kept alive in the cloister and the castle- 

 garth. By slow degrees, however, as civilisation once more began to 



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