Of gardeners there was the topiarius, a fancy gardener, whose main business it was to be expert on growing, cutting and clipping trees. The villicus, or viridarius, who was the real villa gardener, with much the same duties as our gardener of to-day. The hortulanus is a later term. And there was the aquarius, a slave whose duty it was to see that all the garden was provided with proper aqueducts, and who managed the fountains which, without doubt, formed a great part in garden ornament. I imagine, also, that the aquarius would have control over the supply of hot water which must flow through the green-houses where early fruits and flowers were forced; such fruits as Winter Grapes, Melons, and Gherkins; and of flowers, the Rose in particular, for use in garlands and crowns.
Violets and Roses were the principal flowers, being often grown as borders to the beds of vegetables, so that one might find Violets, Onions, Turnips, and Kidney Beans flourishing together.
Besides these flowers there were also the Crocus, Narcissus, Lily, Iris, Hyacinth (the Greek emblem of the dead in memory of the youth killed by Apollo by mistake with a quoit), Poppy, and the bright red Damask Rose and Lupias.
In the orchards of Rome were Cherries, Plums, Quinces, Pomegranates, Peaches, Almonds, Medlars, and Mulberries; and in the vineyards were thirty varieties of Grapes. Those kinds of fruits which were hardy enough to stand our climate were grown here, and to judge from all account only the Olive failed to meet the test.
Not only were flowers and fruit grown in profusion but Herbs, Asparagus, and Radishes had their place.
Honey, which took a great place in Roman cookery, and in making possets, and in thickening wine, was provided by bees kept especially in apiaries built in sheltered places, with beds of Cytisus, and Thyme and Apiastrum by them. The hives were built of brick or baked dung, and were placed in tiers, the lowest on stone parapets about three feet above the ground; these parapets being covered with smooth stucco to prevent lizards and insects from entering the hives.
The descriptions by the younger Pliny of his villas and gardens are so delightful in themselves, besides being of great value, that I am going to quote largely from them.
The village of Laurentium where Pliny built his villa was on the shores of the Tuscan Sea, and not far from the mouth of the Tiber. The villa was built as a refuge after a hard day’s work in Rome, which was only seventeen miles away. “A distance,” he says, “which allows us, after we have finished the business of the day, to return thither from town, with the setting sun.”
There were two roads from Rome to this villa, the one the Laurentine road—“if you go the Laurentine you must quit the high road at the fourteenth stone”—and the Ostian road, where the branch took place at the eleventh.
After a description of the house and the baths he writes of the garden: