ON THE ROSE. 
329 
represents Venus anointing the dead body of Patroclus with Hose oil ; and it is not at all 
improbable that both Rose oils and ointments were extensively used on many festive 
occasions. The Rose, in various forms, entered into the prescriptions of ancient medical 
practitioners, and those of Celsus may be cited as examples. 
Of the general and particular uses of these and other preparations of the Rose as 
medicinal agents, frequent mention is made by Theophrastus, Pliny, Oribasius, Actuarius, 
Marcellus, Myriscus, Celsus, and many others, hut it is sufficient to indicate the sources 
from which information may be gained respecting the medicinal uses of the Rose ; to 
proceed any further in this direction would be to collect information, which to the generality 
of readers would be devoid of interest or amusement. 
In passing on to the more popular and general employment of this beautiful plant, it 
will be necessary to consider the use of flowers generally among the ancients, hearing in 
mind, however, that the Rose, the “ queen of flowers,” the consecrated “flower of love,” 
whose colour is comparable only to that of the human complexion, and from whose chalice 
breathes “a divine fragrance,” was of all flowers known to the ancients, the most beloved 
and esteemed ; a flower, which Pliny says was known to almost all nations equally with 
wine, myrtle, and oil, and which was to be found almost everywhere. Notwithstanding 
this statement, and that the researches of modern travellers have shown the Rose to be 
indigenous to the soil of Greece, and of Asia Minor, there are writers who believe that 
the Greeks were wholly unacquainted with a Rose flower, which could justify the 
encomiums of the verses usually attributed to Anacreon, until after the year 332, b.c. 
Plowever favourable the soil of Greece was to the production of flowers and of fruits, 
we do not find that the cultivation of the former became an object of taste until somewhat 
about the time of Aristophanes, b.c. 434, in a passage of one of whose comedies we have 
the earliest intimation of the existence of flower-gardens ; and it is probable that the 
flowers cultivated in them were those chiefly required for the weaving of crowns and 
forming festoons, such as Violets and Roses. At a later period we find descriptions of 
gardens, which are represented as producing in Spring, Violets, Lilies, Roses, and 
Hyacinths ; in Summer, Poppies, and all kinds of fruits ; in Autumn, Figs, Pomegranates, 
Vines, and Myrtles. We are not, however, to believe that these gardens at all approximated 
to the ideas we now have of a flower-garden ; and the intermixture mentioned by Plutarch, 
of Roses and Violets, with Leeks and Onions, does not at all correspond with our present 
conceptions of horticultural beauty, notwithstanding we are assured by a writer in the 
Geoponics that the fragrance of the Rose is augmented and improved by being grown in 
the vicinity of garlic, or that 
The Psestan Rose unfolds 
Her bud more loosely near the fetid Leek. 
Phillips. Cider. Book I. v. 254. 
The employment of flowers was introduced among the Romans from Greece, and by them 
carried to an extent unknown to the nation which they imitated. 
From the younger Pliny’s description of his Tuscan villa, we learn that a level space 
in the grounds surrounding his residence was dedicated to the reception of flowers, and 
that there were flower beds scattered elsewhere among the shrubs. 
The principal flowers cultivated by the Romans in gardens appear to have been Roses 
and Violets. Of the latter they possessed three kinds, the white, the purple, and the 
yellow ; the last-mentioned appears to have been the greatest favourite in cultivation. 
They had also the Lily, the Crocus, the Narcissus, the Poppy, the Amaranth, the Iris, 
and the Gladiolus. 
Flowers were, however, to be found in other places than in gardens attached to Roman 
villas. They were kept in the windows of houses ; in small gardens formed on the roofs 
of houses ; and very frequently in the centre of a space within the limits of the house, 
known as the peristyle, flowers and shrubs were either planted, or it was decorated with 
vases containing flowers. 
The art of weaving wreaths, and plaiting garlands and festoons, was practised by a 
distinct class of people, both male and female, but chiefly by women and girls, whose care 
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