The Gardens of Ancient Rome 
powerful influences were operating all on 
the side of its elaboration. What, indeed, 
in Roman life did not begin to feel, or could 
resist, the electric forces of increased wealth ? 
The spread of education, the importation of 
Greek teachers and semi-oriental habits, for¬ 
eign wares and foreign plants, and foreign 
gods, both after the Punic wars, and espe¬ 
cially after the conquest of Greece, fatally 
affected the simplicity of Roman life, and 
the spirit that haunted the Roman garden 
likewise felt the change, as did Venus, the 
garden-goddess herself, and Mars, the god 
of the wheatfields. To simple utility was 
given for partner costly ornament. 
Then perfumes, derived from specially 
cultivated flowers, began to obtain recogni¬ 
tion in fashionable life, and incense was 
more freely burned in the temples. And 1 
must confess that if the Tuscan dealers in 
perfumes and pot-pourris thronged the Vicus 
Tuscus leading into the Forum, the im¬ 
mediate vicinitv of the Cloaca Maxima was 
not altogether an inappropriate situation for 
the center of their commerce. In the words 
of our own poet, all the spices of Arabia 
might sometimes fail to sweeten that little 
spot. From simple burnt laurel, verbena 
[herba sabina) and juniper, people advanced 
to the use of Cilician crocus, myrrh, costum 
speciosum and cinnamon. 
But the garden itself probably most felt the 
change when the architecture of the house 
underwent improvement by the addition of 
the Greek peristylium or colonnaded court. 
Flouses with no peristylium still kept their 
flower-gardens at the rear ; as may be seen in 
the houses of Pansa, Epidius Rufus and that 
of the surgeon at Pompeii ; although in the 
latter instance both peristylium and rear-gar¬ 
den occur, the latter behind the former. In 
fact, the more precious or flowering portion 
of the garden was transferred to the peris¬ 
tylium, which it brightly adorned and made 
fragrant, and where it could be enjoyed by 
the entire household. 
Of course matters did not stop here. 
Enrichments of various kinds presently 
supervened in the peristylium, or close, by 
the addition of carven well-heads, fountains 
and statues, and the marble lined impluvium 
or tank, in which, later on, were placed roots 
of scented lilies brought from the rivers of 
Africa. Finally, there came over artists 
who covered the court of the rich man with 
frescoes in brilliant panels. And in this 
manner, it seems to me at least, the Roman 
pleasure-garden may have had its “genesis.” 
It was an expansion of the garden in the 
peristyle. 
But although some such pleasure-gardens, 
on quite a limited scale, marked the evolu¬ 
tion from the mere strip of flower-garden— 
marked, that is to say, the superior rank 
and estimation put upon the place for flowers 
—the authorities practically agree in regard¬ 
ing Lucullus as the real creator of the great 
princely pleasure-garden, a place of sumptu¬ 
ous private entertainment. The example of 
the millionaire was certainly imitated with 
rapidity, on a smaller scale, by all the rich 
and leisured folk of the succeeding times. 
Varro says: “ Saturi fiamus ex Africa et 
Sardinia ,” and he complains that the most 
fruitful districts of the land are being con¬ 
verted into these pleasure-gardens, and that 
the operation is attended by increasing dear¬ 
ness of the cereals. And, but little later 
than this, we find Horace lamenting that 
the luxury of possessing myrtle-woods, vio¬ 
let-beds and plantations of roses has become 
so general that there is scarcely room for 
the cultivation of more useful plants. Truly 
we do not often find a poet deliberately re¬ 
gretting that the cabbage gives way to the 
rose, or the onion to the violet. 
And this, perforce, brings me to an agree¬ 
able point in my subject, namely, the con¬ 
sideration of the amazing (but who will say 
undue?) importance attained in Roman civ¬ 
ilization by the rose. There seems to have 
been no known period when the rose was 
not at home with the Romans. It belongs 
to their earliest traditions, and it flourished 
wherever they conquered. For they grew 
roses and imported them also. They raised 
them from seeds and likewise from runners, or 
threads of root. They knew all about graft¬ 
ing on to wild stocks, all about budding, 
pruning and fumigating. Yet notwithstand¬ 
ing the favoring climate, the demand for 
this national passion of theirs could not be 
supplied. 
Roses were planted both singly and in 
groups, sometimes actually in whole planta¬ 
tions, and thus arose even a profession of 
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