Xiv RISE AND PROGRESS 



Sardis ; he was informed by Cyrus that the arrangement of his 

 garden was entirely his own work, and that many of the trees 

 were planted by himself. Lysander was astonished to hear 

 this, and expressing his surprise to the king, Cyrus said, 

 "Do you wonder at this, Lysander ? I swear, by the diadem 

 I wear, that if I be in health, I never eat any food until I 

 have exercised my body till I perspire, sometimes in martial 

 exercises, at other times in gardening, or similar laborious 

 exercises of husbandry." 



Cyrus had many gardens : one of them, at Celenae, was of 

 such extent, that he mustered the Grecian forces, to the num- 

 ber of thirteen thousand men, in it. Gardening must, there- 

 fore, have been reduced to a regular science, under such a 

 patron as Cyrus, and we are informed by Pliny, that, in the 

 Persian gardens, the trees were planted in straight lines, and 

 regular figures. Among their trees, the Oriental plane, and, 

 what may appear to us remarkable, the narrow-leaved elm, 

 (now called English,) held a conspicuous place. Odoriferous 

 plants, such as roses, violets, &c., were planted along the 

 margins of the walks. 



Epicurus, among the Greeks, delighted in the pleasures of 

 the garden, and he chose one for the spot in which to teach 

 his philosophy. Among the flowers cultivated by the Greeks 

 were the narcissus, violet, and rose. 



Lord Bacon and W. Mason considered gardening as rather 

 neglected among the Greeks, notwithstanding the progress of 

 the sister art of architecture, which gave rise to his lordship's 

 remark, " That when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men 

 come to build stately sooner than to garden finely ; as if gar- 

 dening were the greater perfection." 



The garden of Tarquinius Superbus, five hundred and four 

 years before Christ, is mentioned by Livy and Dionysius Hali- 

 carnassus, as among the first in the annals of Roman history. 

 It adjoined the royal palace, and abounded chiefly with roses 

 and poppies. 



The next in rotation was that of Lucullus, near Baiae, in 

 the bay of Naples. In this garden, the peach, cherry, and 

 apricot, were first introduced from the East, and were pro- 

 bably brought by Lucullus himself on his return from one of 



