I he Gardens of Ancient Rome 
THE LAURENTINE COUNTRY HOUSE OF PLINY THE YOUNGER 
A typical house and garden of Roman times and the only one upon which precise information exists. This is a restoration , according to 
Pliny's description , by the French architect Louis Pierre Haudebourt , 
moment to the origins of some of the most 
aristocratic names in Roman history—the 
Fabii, the Caepiones, the Lentuli and the 
Pisones — we shall find that they rather 
corroborate the suggested homeliness of the 
national beginnings. 
It can scarcely be said that if one hears a 
person addressed as Mr. Bean the fact neces¬ 
sarily impresses us; yet, if in Caesar’s day 
a Roman had heard one of his neighbors 
addressed as “ Fabius,” he would have be¬ 
come aware that the person so addressed 
was a member of the most aristocratic of the 
clans; albeit in that period the harmless, 
necessary bean had come to be considered 
as food only fit for peasants and gladiators. 
In the Louvre—or was it in the Flermitage? 
—I once saw a golden crown fashioned of 
bean-leaves which had been taken from an 
Italian tomb, and which, doubtless, had 
adorned the brows of some once revered 
personage and the thought came from the 
olden time: was he, by chance, of the 
valiant Fabii, one of whom erected a trium¬ 
phal stone arch on the Sacra Via, three hun¬ 
dred of whom once perished together in the 
Veientine war? 
But the Fabii were by no means the only 
illustrious family deriving their name from 
a garden vegetable. The Caepiones owed 
theirs to Ctepa —an onion ; the Lentuli theirs 
to lens, the lentil ; while the Pisones derived 
theirs from “ pisum," the pea; moreover 
Cicero , the cognomen of Marcus Tullius, 
like that of Professor Ceci today, is from 
cicer , the chick-pea. In Satire V, 177, Per- 
sius tells us that at the feast of Flora vetches, 
beans and lupines were scattered broadcast 
among the populace gathered together in the 
Circus Maximus. The significance of this 
was doubtless the same as that intended by 
the rice, peas, and beans still thrown at wed¬ 
dings in various countries. 
The potato was, of course, wanting to the 
Roman garden, but Cato considered the 
cabbage [brassica) to be the very king of 
vegetables, and it is likelv that many varieties 
of the plant were cultivated already in his 
day. Brassica est qu<£ omnibus holeribus an¬ 
tis tat, and he liked it both cooked and raw, 
dressed with vinegar. The best kind of 
artichokes ( cinara ) came from Carthage, 
whence had been imported the malum Puni- 
cum , or pomegranate ; and also, apparently, 
the finest figs. For one recollects the clever 
use made by the same Cato of a bunch of 
quite fresh Carthaginian figs, which being 
suddenly produced from beneath his toga, 
were intended to convince his hearers that 
great Carthage was become too near a com¬ 
mercial rival in the Mediterranean for the 
security of Rome. Feniculum or fennel, and 
lactuca , lettuce—both of them, with the 
Phoenicians sacred to Adonis—were regarded, 
