Ancient Roman Gardens, Part 1: Plants and Purpose
A look into two ancient Roman garden types and the symbolism, medicinal use and tasty uses of plants grown within the boundaries of those places.
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Hello fellow time-traveler,
Today we are taking a trip into the first century, when Vesuvius erupted and then buried the city of Pompeii under a think blanket of ash and mud and pyroclastic flow, preserving a garden for research and examination. Then we will look at the reinterpretation and planting of a garden inspired by a grand villa in Herculaneum, rebuilt not in Italy but in Southern California.
From these two sites I hope to inspire in you a desire to think about the meaning and uses of the plants you curate in your own garden, patio or with houseplants.
Let’s go! Lorraine
The Two Gardens
A look into two different types of ancient gardens: a more utilitarian but still aesthetically pleasing urban garden for the more common class, and a much grander version of a garden for a family of greater means and influence.
The Peristyle Garden
Even today, Pompeii amazes us with its look into everyday life from long ago. Though the end of many lives was tragically ended with the explosion of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., it preserved for us their way of life and provides tactile evidence that would otherwise have been lost to time. I found the following open-source illustrations that showcase a more polished version of a peristyle garden:
The peristyle garden was what I think would now commonly be called a courtyard, but has a few distinctions. The opening to the garden had rows of columns (colonnades), likely on 2 to 3 sides of the garden. On one of the walls there might be a painting, probably of a garden with exotic animals and a painted fountain to visually extend the garden and give a sense of calm to the area.
While the peristyle garden could be formal and just meant as an attractive place to gather or meditate, as the illustration above shows it could also be a place to grow fruit or nut trees. There is also evidence of terracotta pots, so it is possible to envision the garden as a place for growing herbs and other smaller edible plants in the space available for use in the kitchen.
It is interesting to note that the excavations of Pompeii revealed that “there was at least one garden in almost every house, while some had three or four.” This led Wilhelmina F. Jashemski to note that “a love of beauty and gardens was a basic part of their lives; the desire for a bit of green, a few herbs, and flowers appears to have been an integral part of their character.”
More evidence to the utility of these urban gardens are nail holes found in the walls, which likely meant espaliered fruit trees - possibly lemon, because “lemons fascinated the ancient Pompeians and we find them portrayed in the wall paintings”.
The Villa
The villa that I mentioned in the introduction is the Getty Villa Museum, and it is inspired on the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum. Herculaneum was also destroyed by the same eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, but it is further north on the western coast of Italy.
The Getty Villa Museum is located in Los Angeles, more specifically along the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Similar to the area around Pompeii where multiple seasons of crops can be grown in a year, California’s warm but not too hot climate can similarly grow crops year-round. In the guide I have from the Getty Villa, there were multiple descriptions of heat- and drought-tolerant plants throughout the villa, but I focused my studies on the plants that had details about Roman use or traditions. I hope to visit in person this year or next!
In particular the larger villas focused on non-food elements; there were water features, statues and paintings that factored heavily into the design and details.
Plants of the Gardens
In looking at information about the two kinds of gardens, it appears that evergreen plants were highly regarded. Unlike a more modern American sense of gardening where rows of flowers or bushes are chosen for their color and come from all over the world, the Roman gardens were usually focused on the structure of the garden and the more subtle blooms of the evergreens should they bloom.
Flowers
Flowers did figure prominently in the ancient Roman world; I’ll categorize them into two: flowers for work and flowers for pleasure.
The flowers for “work” were for the honeybees. I kept coming across descriptions of flowers that were for the pollinators and bees, which makes sense because honey was the main sweetener for people in that area at that time. Here is a list of the flowers frequently grown for the lovely honey flavor:
Campanula glomera - Globe Bellflower
Echium candicans - Pride of Madeira
Scabiosa columbaria - Pincushion flower
Borago officinalis - Borage
Lavendula - Lavender
Melissa pumila - Lemon Balm
The flowers for “pleasure” were mainly for their perfume and beauty. Pliny listed the rose, then the lily, and then the violet as the flowers most frequently grown for their scent and form. Rose petals were frequently sprinkled on banquet tables. Lilies were prized for their shape and were used for decoration. Violets were valued highly for their scent, something that continued for many centuries.
Symbolism
The ancient Romans were also very attached to the symbolism of certain plants. Here are my top four:
Hedera helix English Ivy - Used extensively in gardens where the ivy vines would get trained into various shapes. Ivy was associated with Bacchus and often paired with grape vines.
Rosmarinus officinalis Rosemary - Bearing rosemary by bridegrooms was done to “establish his dominion over the household”.
Quercus suber Cork Oak - The crown of oak leaves: worn by deities and people of extreme power.
Laurus nobilis Grecian Bay Laurel - This plant was associated with victory and peace, which is why it was so often woven into a crown and placed on the head
Medicine
There are many, many descriptions of the plants and herbs in Pliny’s Natural History that were touted to potentially cure ailments. Some of them seem rather reasonable and have proven to have a substantial basis in science-based medicine: for example, rose hips were ingested in teas the same way we’d treat a cold with vitamin C exactly *because* it turns out that rose hips have a very high concentration of vitamin C! But other countless “cures” were to do things like drive serpents away.
For the soldier on the move, there was no first aid kit. Here are the plants that a soldier, lightly wounded in battle, could use to bandage their wounds:
Stachys byzantina Lamb’s ears
Achillea tomentosa Wooley Yarrow
Lysimachia nummularia Creeping Jenny
I’m not sure if these plants were selected as bandages because their leaves felt nice or actually helped with infection in any way.
Some Interesting tidbits
Emperor Tiberius loved cucumbers so much that he had wheeled raised beds created for his favorite veggie that would get wheeled around into the sunniest spots during the day so they’d grow nicely
Emperor Nero was kind of obsessed with his voice and would go on leek-only diets to improve his voice.
A bed of violets is known as a “violarium”