DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0089
Ancient Greece
61
emperor in the court of Adonis: " This court was adorned with flowers just as the Assyrians
plant them on the roofs in honour of Adonis." The narrator had accurate knowledge of
the cult, all the more because he had gone to Greece at one time from Syria, the native
home of the Adonis cult. In the palace of Domitian tubs were set as a decoration all
round the roof of the pillared court, and later on we shall find traces of a similar custom
at Pompeii.
At first it was only in the short period of a festival that the Greek women adorned
their flat roofs with flower-pots; but later on they kept this pretty custom the whole year
through, till at last there came about the decoration of balconies and roofs in Rome at
all seasons. Pliny's account of the Adonis gardens is somewhat exaggerated when he finds
them like the gardens of the Hesperides, the garden of Alcinous, and the hanging gardens
of Semiramis, grouping them all together as exceedingly wonderful.
At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War there came about a great change in the
homes of the Attic town-dwellers. In consequence of the persuasive eloquence of Pericles
and partly through dire necessity, those who lived on the land, peasants and gentry alike,
moved into the town with all their portable property. The flat country was laid waste
by Aristodemus. With much murmuring and with many delays they gave up their pleasant
country life and left their fair estates to grow wild. But necessity compelled, and the days
of old returned to Attic lands no more. Soon men were looking back as on a happy past
upon those days when Attica was so safe that her lands were covered with country houses
fairer than any in a town.
It was only the people of Elis who "according to old custom still lived on the land:
they loved their country life, so that there were well-to-do families among them who for
generations had never come into the town." Their early conditions were never destroyed,
for the peace of God protected their lands; ay, they could even enjoy their own jurisdiction
—an ideal which for long enough floated before the eyes of Attic gentlemen, even to the
days of Theophrastus, as we can see by his jeers at the Aristocrat.
It was the ever-growing, hated democracy, far more than the disturbance of wars,
that forced the country gentlemen of Athens to abandon their lands for ever. It is obvious
that such a change would be far from propitious to the development of the art of
private gardening.
The effect was of course restricted to the mother country. In Asia Minor the close
connection with the East may well have brought about a garden culture adapted to an
Eastern country, though we are not in a position to prove that it did. In the gardens of
Macedonia, already mentioned, we can perhaps see an early direct influence of Asia
Minor at work. With favourable social conditions a love of parks and gardens could extend
on Greek soil where certainly Oriental influence had not been present. The powerful
tyrant Gelon owned in the land of the Bruttii in the year 500 B.C. a park which excelled in
beauty and was splendidly watered: in it was a site called the Horn of Amalthea, after
the goat that gave milk to the child Zeus.
We can only take this to be a nymphaeum such as Homer described, one of those
sanctuaries that included well-arranged trees, artfully enclosed water, and perhaps a
grotto as well. What kind of water system was in Gelon's park we can only conjecture,
but possibly the name Horn of Amalthea points to a fine waterfall, or possibly it only
refers to the unusual fecundity of the place. At a later time these nymph sanctuaries
61
emperor in the court of Adonis: " This court was adorned with flowers just as the Assyrians
plant them on the roofs in honour of Adonis." The narrator had accurate knowledge of
the cult, all the more because he had gone to Greece at one time from Syria, the native
home of the Adonis cult. In the palace of Domitian tubs were set as a decoration all
round the roof of the pillared court, and later on we shall find traces of a similar custom
at Pompeii.
At first it was only in the short period of a festival that the Greek women adorned
their flat roofs with flower-pots; but later on they kept this pretty custom the whole year
through, till at last there came about the decoration of balconies and roofs in Rome at
all seasons. Pliny's account of the Adonis gardens is somewhat exaggerated when he finds
them like the gardens of the Hesperides, the garden of Alcinous, and the hanging gardens
of Semiramis, grouping them all together as exceedingly wonderful.
At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War there came about a great change in the
homes of the Attic town-dwellers. In consequence of the persuasive eloquence of Pericles
and partly through dire necessity, those who lived on the land, peasants and gentry alike,
moved into the town with all their portable property. The flat country was laid waste
by Aristodemus. With much murmuring and with many delays they gave up their pleasant
country life and left their fair estates to grow wild. But necessity compelled, and the days
of old returned to Attic lands no more. Soon men were looking back as on a happy past
upon those days when Attica was so safe that her lands were covered with country houses
fairer than any in a town.
It was only the people of Elis who "according to old custom still lived on the land:
they loved their country life, so that there were well-to-do families among them who for
generations had never come into the town." Their early conditions were never destroyed,
for the peace of God protected their lands; ay, they could even enjoy their own jurisdiction
—an ideal which for long enough floated before the eyes of Attic gentlemen, even to the
days of Theophrastus, as we can see by his jeers at the Aristocrat.
It was the ever-growing, hated democracy, far more than the disturbance of wars,
that forced the country gentlemen of Athens to abandon their lands for ever. It is obvious
that such a change would be far from propitious to the development of the art of
private gardening.
The effect was of course restricted to the mother country. In Asia Minor the close
connection with the East may well have brought about a garden culture adapted to an
Eastern country, though we are not in a position to prove that it did. In the gardens of
Macedonia, already mentioned, we can perhaps see an early direct influence of Asia
Minor at work. With favourable social conditions a love of parks and gardens could extend
on Greek soil where certainly Oriental influence had not been present. The powerful
tyrant Gelon owned in the land of the Bruttii in the year 500 B.C. a park which excelled in
beauty and was splendidly watered: in it was a site called the Horn of Amalthea, after
the goat that gave milk to the child Zeus.
We can only take this to be a nymphaeum such as Homer described, one of those
sanctuaries that included well-arranged trees, artfully enclosed water, and perhaps a
grotto as well. What kind of water system was in Gelon's park we can only conjecture,
but possibly the name Horn of Amalthea points to a fine waterfall, or possibly it only
refers to the unusual fecundity of the place. At a later time these nymph sanctuaries