House and Garden 
as they still are here, as particularly good 
for the “ Minister of the Interior,” and also 
as sleep-producers. Venus is said to have 
salved the wounds of Adonis with lettuce. 
Pliny mentions a family who were not 
ashamed of their name, in fact a branch of 
the Gens Valeria: Lactucini. Pumpkin 
(cucurbita ) and cucumber ( cucumis ) may both 
have been cultivated in quite early times. 
The Emperor Tiberius, probably a care¬ 
fully temperate man, at one time is said to 
have eaten cucumber daily. Intybus , or 
endive, and wild asparagus were greatly 
esteemed, though the latter was thought 
inferior to a kind grown at Ravenna, and to 
that brought from Germany. 
I turn from these vegetables, however, to 
the fruit-trees, which in early days must per¬ 
force have been rare, perhaps including only 
apples, pears, certain nuts, together with the 
almond and the fig, and even these came to 
Rome chiefly from other districts in Italy, 
such as Picenum, Nola, and Taranto. The 
malum Punicum or pomegranate, which has 
always thrived in Roman soil, was no doubt 
a very early introduction from Carthage, per¬ 
haps by way of Sicily ; and of course the 
olive was regarded almost as native though 
brought up from Campania by one of the 
Licinian Gens. But so much during the 
later Republic did the Romans apply them¬ 
selves to fructiculture that some ancient 
writers even go so far as to describe Italy as 
one great orchard : ut tot a pomarium vide at ur. 
At that period rich amateurs vied with one 
another in the culture of apples and vines, 
and after Lucullus had introduced the cherry 
from Cerasus (on his way home from his 
campaign against Mithridates) of that fruit 
also ; so that we hear of malum Claudianum , 
Appianum , Cestianum , of Pit is Licinia , Sergia, 
Cominia, and finally of Cerasa Juniana , Apro- 
niana, and Pliniana. The bericocca , or apri¬ 
cot, is mentioned by various authors as 
ynalum prcecox. Peaches multiplied, while 
chestnuts, pistacium from Spain, nuts from 
Thasos, and quinces from Crete, formed an 
integral portion of the festive repast. 
But, meantime, what was happening to the 
primitive Roman garden? It is obvious that 
THE PLAN OF PLINY THE YOUNGER S LAURENTINE VILLA 
The Restoration by Louis Pierre Haudebourt 
39 
