Rouse & Garden 
one, in the matter ot houses at least. A 
winter house and a summer house ; a seaside 
house and a mountain house; a house in 
the south, at Naples or Baiae or near Pom¬ 
peii, and a house in the north among the 
hills of Etruria; a little house and a big 
house and a house near Rome ; those were 
some of the modest requirements of the 
Roman of wealth and leisure of the impe¬ 
rial or late republican period, in addition to 
the city house in the very outskirts ot Rome 
or within its walls. 
The Roman love for the country amounted 
to a passion; it survives to-day in the ville- 
giatura of the modern Roman gentleman, to 
whom the annual summer’s rustication is an 
absolutely essential feature of his life. “No 
gentleman can do without it,” however modest 
his fortune. Phis 
love of the country 
was, in the ancient 
Roman, not the 
modern sentiment 
of nature-love, the 
poetic delight in 
the contemplation 
of the wonder and 
beauty of the natu¬ 
ral world for its own 
sake, but rather the 
more selfishbut not 
unworthy pleasure 
in the physical and 
esthetic satisfac¬ 
tions which rural 
life could bring. 
In the country 
were rest and free¬ 
dom from care; 
the coolness of 
fresh breezes in 
summer, the mild¬ 
ness of a southern 
sun in winter; the 
gleam and plash of 
springs and foun¬ 
tains, the shade of 
rocks, the restful 
verdure of trees 
and grass, the per¬ 
fume of violets and 
roses. Above all 
there was space 
and air; and the Roman could not live with¬ 
out these. He hated the cramped quarters 
even of his relatively spacious city houses. 
He lived by preference in the open air, but 
in the city the open air meant always the 
presence of a crowd and sounds and smells 
hateful to a refined taste. Even a modest 
farmsteading was better than the city with its 
crowds. “ Odi profanum vulgus et arceo," 
cries H orace ; and in the sixth of the second 
book of his Satires he voices his longing for 
rural quiet and peace : 
“ This was my dream—a modest piece of land, 
“ A garden, and a cottage by a spring, 
“ And eke a bit of woods—and lo, the gods 
“ Surpassed my prayers. Tis well ! naught more I crave, 
“ O Maia’s son, but to enjoy these ever.” 
The Roman of the age from Cicero to 
Pliny—the golden age of Roman villa-life— 
3 
