HORTUS
HORTUS (
κῆπος), a garden.
Greek
Our knowledge of the horticulture of the Greeks is very limited.
Curiously enough, however, the mythical and fairy-like garden of
Alcinous (
Hom. Od. 7.112-
130) has one important feature in common
with the little that is recorded of the gardens of historical times.
This is its strictly utilitarian character: it is divided into a fruit
garden, a vineyard, and a garden of herbs, or more literally of
leek-beds (
πρασιαί, 5.127); there is no trace of the cultivation of
lowers. The fruits named are simple ones--apples, pears, figs,
pomegranates, and olives; there is nothing supernatural about them ; and
the artificial irrigation described is nothing more than has always been
practised in Egypt and the East. We may say further, that there is
nothing improbable in the idea of a succession of grapes and other fruit
having been partially realised by early Greek gardening, though in the
Homeric picture, with the various stages of growth and maturity all
going on together, poetic embellishment has no doubt been carried far
beyond the actual.
The Greeks had evidently little taste for landscape beauties, and the
small number of flowers with which they were acquainted afforded but
little inducement to ornamental horticulture. The nearest approach to it
seems to have been in the sacred groves, which contained ornamental and
odoriferous plants and fruit trees, particularly olives and vines.
(
Soph. Oed. Col. 16;
Xen. Anab. 5.3.12.) That of the
Grynean Apollo was full of timber trees and flowering shrubs (
δένδρων καὶ ἡμέρων), pleasant to sight
and smell, but without fruit (
Paus.
1.21.9).
The only passage in the earlier Greek writers in which flower-gardens
appear to be mentioned, is one in Aristophanes, who speaks of
κήπους εὐώδεις (
Aves, 5.1066). At Athens the flowers most cultivated were
probably those used for making garlands, such as violets and roses. The
rose-garden in Demosthenes (
ῥοδωνιά,
c. Nicostr. p. 1251.16) was doubtless cultivated for
profit, not for the owner's pleasure (cf. Sandys
ad
loc.). The suburbs of Athens abounded with gardens which in
like manner must have served to supply the city with flowers and
vegetables (
Plin. Nat. 36.16;
Paus. 1.19.2). And when we read of books on
gardening (
τὰ περὶ κήπων ἐργασίας
συγγράμματα, [Plat.]
Min. p.
316 E), we may safely assume that they treated the subject from the
market-gardener's, not the aesthetic point of view. In the time of the
Ptolemies the art of gardening seems to have advanced in the favourable
climate of Egypt so far, that a succession of flowers was obtained all
the year round. (Callixenus, ap. Ath. v. p. 196 d.) Longus
(
Past. 2.3) describes a garden containing every
production of each season, “in spring, roses, lilies, hyacinths,
and violets; in summer, poppies, wild-pears (
ἀχράδες), and all fruit; in autumn, vines and figs,
and pomegranates and myrtles.” That the Greek idea of
horticultural beauty was not quite the same as ours, may be inferred
from a passage in Plutarch, where he speaks of the practice of setting
off the beauties of roses and violets, by planting them side by side
with leeks and onions (
De capienda ex inimicis
utilitate, 100.10). Still it is easy to exaggerate their
utilitarian tendencies: if the supply of flowers was regulated by
commercial principles, the demand itself testified to a love of flowers
for their own sake (cf. Becker-Göll,
Charikles,
1.310-313).
It need hardly be said that the paradises of the Persian satraps (
Xen. Anab. 1.2, § 7, 2.4.14;
Cyrop. 1.3.14;
Hell. 4.1.15) had
nothing in common with gardens; they were enclosed parks for the
preservation of game.
2. Roman
The Romans, like the Greeks, laboured under the disadvantage of a very
limited flora. This disadvantage they endeavoured to overcome, by
arranging the materials they did possess in such a way as to produce a
striking effect. We have two very full descriptions of Roman gardens in
the letters of the younger Pliny, referring to his Laurentine and Tuscan
villas (
Plin. Ep. 2.17,
5.6). In front of the
porticus there was generally a
xystus, or flat piece of ground, divided into flower-beds of
different shapes by borders of box. There were also such flower-beds in
other parts of the garden. Sometimes they were raised so as to form
terraces, and their sloping sides planted
[p. 1.977]with
evergreens or creepers. The most striking features of a Roman garden
were lines of large trees, among which the plane appears to have been a
great favourite, planted in regular order; alleys or walks (
ambulationes) formed by closely clipped hedges
of box, yew, cypress, and other evergreens; beds of acanthus, rows of
fruittrees, especially of vines, with statues, pyramids, fountains, and
summer-houses (
diaetae). The trunks of the
trees, and the parts of the house or any other buildings which were
visible from the garden, were often covered with ivy. (
Plin. Ep. 5.6;
Cic. ad Q. Fr. 3.1, § 2.) Rich well
remarks that “this sketch of Pliny's garden might also pass for a
faithful description of the pleasure-grounds belonging to the Villa
Pamfili [Doria] at Rome” ; and we may add, as a further point
of coincidence in taste between the Romans and the modern Italians,
their fondness for the
ars topiaria, which
consisted in tying, twisting, or cutting trees and shrubs (especially
the box) into the figures of animals, ships, letters, &c. The
importance attached to this part of horticulture is proved not only by
the description of Pliny, and the notices of other writers (
Plin. Nat. 16.140, 21.68, 22.76;
Martial,
3.19,
2;
Plin. Ep. 5.6.16), but also by the
fact that
topiarius is the only name used
in good Latin writers for the ornamental gardener. Cicero
(
Parad. 5.2) mentions the
topiarius among the higher class of slaves.
Attached to the garden were places for exercise, the
gestatio and
hippodromus. The
gestatio was a sort of avenue, shaded
by trees, for the purpose of taking gentle exercise, such as riding in a
litter (
Plin. Ep. 2.17.13;
5.6.17;
9.7 ;--Sen.
Ep. 55
init.; Orelli,
Inscr. 4336). The
hippodromus (not, as one reading gives the word
in Pliny,
hypodromus) was a place for running or
horse exercise, in the form of a circus, consisting of several paths
divided by hedges of box, ornamented with topiarian work, and surrounded
by large trees. (
Plin. Ep. 5.6.32;
Martial,
12.50,
5;
57,
23.) [
HIPPODROMUS]
The flowers which the Romans possessed, though few in comparison with the
species known to us, were more numerous than some writers have
represented; but the subject still
 |
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A Roman garden. (From a painting at Herculaneum.)
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requires investigation. Their principal garden-flowers seem to
have been violets and roses, and they also had the crocus, narcissus,
lily, gladiolus, iris, poppy, amaranth, and others.
Conservatories and hot-houses are not mentioned by any writer earlier
than the first century of our era. We then find them closed with
specularia, i.e. windows of talc
(
lapis specularis) split into thin
plates (
Plin. Ep. 2.17, §
§ 4, 21; Sen.
Ep. 90.25; Martial,
8.14 and 68, 13.127). They were used both to
preserve foreign plants and to produce flowers and fruit out of season.
Columella (11.3, § § 51, 52) and Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 19.64) speak of forcing
houses for grapes, melons, &c. In every garden there was a space
set apart for vegetables (
olera).
Flowers and plants were also kept in the central space of the peristyle
[
DOMUS], on the roofs,
and in the windows of the houses. Sometimes, in a town, where the garden
was very small, its walls were painted in imitation of a real garden,
with trees, fountains, birds, &c., and the small area was
ornamented with flowers in vases. A beautiful example of such a garden
was found at Pompeii (Gell's
Pompeiana,
2.4).
The phrase
hortus pensilis is used in two
senses: 1. Hanging gardens, i. e. terraces rising one above another on
arches, of which the Isola Bella on the Lago Maggiore exhibits a modern
instance; they are said, mostly by late writers, to have existed on a
grand scale at Babylon and the Egyptian Thebes (
Plin. Nat. 36. § § 49, 94;
Curt. 5.1). 2. A movable frame like our melon
or cucumber frames, but placed on wheels, and employed in forcing by
markel-gardeners (
olitores). (
Plin. Nat. 19.64, cf.
Col. 11.3.52; Rich, s. v.
Hortus.）
An ornamental garden was also called
viridarium
(
Dig. 33,
7,
8), and the gardener
topiarius or
viridarius. The common
name for a gardener is
vilicus or
cultor hortorum. We find also the special names
vinitor, olitor. The word
hortulanus is only of late formation. The
aquarius had charge of the fountains
both in the garden and in the house. (Becker-Göll,
Gallus, 3.64-88. Böttiger,
Racemationen zur Garten-Kunst der Alten, affords no
real information on ancient gardening, only speculations about Alcinous
and the grotto of Calypso.)
[
P.S] [
W.W]
