DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0087
Ancient Greece
59
wreathed, and though a symposium began with rites of religion, the guests were also
crowned.
But, however this may be, there were still only a few kinds of flowers known to the
Greeks; and the old folk-song that Athenaeus has preserved, "Where shall I find the rose,
the violet, and the lovely parsley?" gives nearly all the flowers known in these early days,
if we add poppy, lily, crocus, and hyacinth. Perhaps the rose was known as a garden flower
soon after Homer's time. At the foot of the Bermion Hills in Macedonia there lay in the
days of Herodotus the fruitful garden of Midas, the son of Gordias, where sixty-petalled
roses grew with surpassingly sweet scent, and maybe the Greeks owed their rose-culture
to the Macedonians. It increased rapidly: Demosthenes knew rose-gardens where many
different kinds were grown.
As to the peculiarities of these gardens, Greek literature leaves us in the dark. The
author of the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Minos only excites curiosity when he mentions
"Writings about Gardens, compiled by Gardeners," of which no trace remains. And
the odd word irepUrprot for beds is some sort of argument for the existence of gardens
with beds of flowers in them.
When the demand for flowers
increased, it brought about a
special trade for gardeners;
but for the needs of a house
no doubt the ordinary men-
servants attended to the flowers
and vegetables together.
How far the culture with
a view to medicinal use had
proceeded in Greece (which is
so plain to see in the Middle
Ages), is not made clear from
our sources of knowledge.
Aristophanes calls the gardens sweet-smelling; and they liked to have odorous plants on
graves, because their sweet smell signified the purification of the dead. And since graves
form so often a part of the garden, we must needs find that herein was a stimulus to the
culture of flowers. They are also grown in the groves of female divinities. At the mouth
of the Alphseus there are flowery groves sacred to Artemis and the nymphs. Aphrodite
above all others was a patroness of flowers and gardens: she was called "violet-crowned."
In the cult of Aphrodite at a later time—already naturalised in Greece in the sixth
century and perhaps derived from Syria with the cult of Adonis—we believe that we
may find the germs of a later garden-craft in the so-called Adonis gardens. At the
Festival of Adonis, celebrated at midsummer by the Athenian women, who sang dirges
over the death of Aphrodite's lover, they used to set up on the roof a figure of Adonis.
Round this they placed earthen pots filled with soil wherein were sown fennel and lettuce,
and also wheat and barley. The plants sprang up soon, and withered as quickly, and this
signified the fate of all vegetation, which after its great beauty in springtime fades early,
dried up in the hot summer of a Southern land. This is symbolised in the mourning for
the early violent death of the beautiful youth Adonis.
FIG. 49. ADONIS GARDEN
59
wreathed, and though a symposium began with rites of religion, the guests were also
crowned.
But, however this may be, there were still only a few kinds of flowers known to the
Greeks; and the old folk-song that Athenaeus has preserved, "Where shall I find the rose,
the violet, and the lovely parsley?" gives nearly all the flowers known in these early days,
if we add poppy, lily, crocus, and hyacinth. Perhaps the rose was known as a garden flower
soon after Homer's time. At the foot of the Bermion Hills in Macedonia there lay in the
days of Herodotus the fruitful garden of Midas, the son of Gordias, where sixty-petalled
roses grew with surpassingly sweet scent, and maybe the Greeks owed their rose-culture
to the Macedonians. It increased rapidly: Demosthenes knew rose-gardens where many
different kinds were grown.
As to the peculiarities of these gardens, Greek literature leaves us in the dark. The
author of the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Minos only excites curiosity when he mentions
"Writings about Gardens, compiled by Gardeners," of which no trace remains. And
the odd word irepUrprot for beds is some sort of argument for the existence of gardens
with beds of flowers in them.
When the demand for flowers
increased, it brought about a
special trade for gardeners;
but for the needs of a house
no doubt the ordinary men-
servants attended to the flowers
and vegetables together.
How far the culture with
a view to medicinal use had
proceeded in Greece (which is
so plain to see in the Middle
Ages), is not made clear from
our sources of knowledge.
Aristophanes calls the gardens sweet-smelling; and they liked to have odorous plants on
graves, because their sweet smell signified the purification of the dead. And since graves
form so often a part of the garden, we must needs find that herein was a stimulus to the
culture of flowers. They are also grown in the groves of female divinities. At the mouth
of the Alphseus there are flowery groves sacred to Artemis and the nymphs. Aphrodite
above all others was a patroness of flowers and gardens: she was called "violet-crowned."
In the cult of Aphrodite at a later time—already naturalised in Greece in the sixth
century and perhaps derived from Syria with the cult of Adonis—we believe that we
may find the germs of a later garden-craft in the so-called Adonis gardens. At the
Festival of Adonis, celebrated at midsummer by the Athenian women, who sang dirges
over the death of Aphrodite's lover, they used to set up on the roof a figure of Adonis.
Round this they placed earthen pots filled with soil wherein were sown fennel and lettuce,
and also wheat and barley. The plants sprang up soon, and withered as quickly, and this
signified the fate of all vegetation, which after its great beauty in springtime fades early,
dried up in the hot summer of a Southern land. This is symbolised in the mourning for
the early violent death of the beautiful youth Adonis.
FIG. 49. ADONIS GARDEN