House and Garden 
also considerable monotony and repetition 
of forms; that one garden with porticoes 
much imitated another, though on a dif¬ 
ferent scale, all around Rome, the same 
architectural mouldings being repeated in 
various marbles; that there was in tact a 
notable poverty of invention, which (to the 
Roman mind), however, was sufficiently at- 
toned for by excessive expense and ostenta¬ 
tion. We should surely have been wearied 
with the oppressive costliness, by the bewil¬ 
dering wealth, and by the deadly want of 
contrast! For, apart from the eternal col¬ 
onnades and fishponds, fountains and marble 
seats and statues, monotony, if not vulgarity, 
must have tyrannized over us in the over¬ 
prized achievements of the topiarius or 
arborator , that highly salaried pleacher, 
who cut and tortured trees of diverse kinds 
into the various deformities then most 
prized or fashionable. For his duty was 
not confined to interminable neat box-edg¬ 
ing and pruning, but he imitated in the 
living materials furnished by the garden the 
forms of sculpture and of architecture. He 
literally grew colonnades, he fashioned obe¬ 
lisks of box, cypress or ilex. He not only 
flattered his lord and master by inscribing his 
name in odoriferous herbs or gorgeous flowers 
that startled the garden with occasional tours 
de force , but he actually trimmed trees into 
family portraits, or even those of historical 
characters ; he transformed bushes and thick- 
foliaged shrubs into the fantastic likeness of 
ships, lions, bears and birds. And these 
rather degenerate conceits and extravagances 
met with profound appreciation and were 
rewarded with increase of wages by the same 
individuals who, having tired of mere gladi¬ 
atorial fights with wild beasts in the Coliseum, 
only derived real thrills from such uncanny 
performances as fights between women and 
dwarfs, or women with each other. Pliny 
says the gardeners were the best paid of all 
workers. 
An inordinate influence the ancients as¬ 
cribed in garden operations to the moon, 
for just as Epicurus had attributed a finer 
flavor to oysters fished up under a waning 
moon, so the Roman gardener and his master 
considered that apples and other fruits ac¬ 
quired a far finer color and relish when 
plucked at that season. They also considered 
that unless the cypress and pine-tree they 
felled for building purposes or for other 
needs were cut beneath a cadent moon, the 
timber was liable to rot. 
And, vice versa , all planting, all sowing 
of cereals and vegetables, had to be done 
while the moon increased. They also cal¬ 
culated very carefully as to north and south 
aspects, winter and summer suns, light or 
shade, for the bettering of their plants. 
Moreover, they took extraordinary pains with 
irrigation, pruning and the dressing of beds ; 
they carried on continual war with ants, 
snails and earthworms, by means of sulphur 
fumigations, soot-scatterings, ashes and oil- 
dregs. Around infected vines or other fruit- 
trees they burned pitch, galbanum, roots of 
lilies and stag-horn ; and planting a fresh 
plot of ground, they rooted up the too 
aggressive “ asphodels,” just as the farm 
folk still do on the Campagna, for two years 
running, placing the bulbs in great heaps 
and consuming them entirely. 
The frescoes in the Villa of Livia at Prima 
Porta, at the house on the Palatine, and 
many of those found at Pompeii, have sup¬ 
plemented for us the not too abundant infor¬ 
mation contained in passages up and down 
the classical poets and litterateurs; writings, 
therefore, have been illustrated by recaptured 
paintings. More than three score orna¬ 
mental trees, shrubs and flowers represented 
in these wall-pictures have been already 
identified and catalogued; and many, let 
us hope, will still be added to the file. Suf¬ 
fice to mention that they used hedges as well 
as lattice work. The latter was made of reeds 
or canes, and the best kinds of the former 
were of cornel and pomegranate interwoven 
with roses or thorn. Above the hedges, 
juniper, cypress, cedar, stone-pines, bay- 
laurels, planes, chestnuts, lotus diospyros, 1 
walnuts, acacias, and figs lifted themselves ; 
while beyond them ran even alleys of trimmed 
ilex and cork-trees, along which the insinu¬ 
ating zephyrs traveled, mingling the breath 
of myrtle, narcissus and the rose. 
3 This much-prized shrub was one of the attractions of the Palatine 
house of Lucius Crassus, whom Cicero nicknamed the “ Palatine 
Venus.” The orator, however, purchased the house himself later 
on. In the peristylium flourished six lotus-trees which survived many 
masters. We hear of Ca;cina Largus proudly showing them to his 
friends in A. D. 42. The plant is still known around Naples as 
“ Legno Santo ” or “Holy-wood.” A more famous specimen was 
for generations the sacred tree of the Vestal Convent. 
43 
