DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0102
74
History of Garden Art
le/zevos, the asylum with the temple of Apollo and Artemis. The great shady park had a
circumference of eighty stadia. The springs here were more abundant than the earth
had ever beheld, and the wonderful cypresses, three hundred in number, were, according
to tradition, planted by the Seleucids.
Later generations could not say enough of the beauty of the baths, the portico, the
places of amusement. The crowds found excellent hostels where vines grew even in the
rooms, while in the gardens were wafted to them the aromatic odours of the flower-beds.
Daphne is praised as the fairest spot on earth.
Syria is reported to have developed the art of gardening with special success. Pliny,
too, reports that the Syrian gardens are the most perfect. Next to Daphne the park most
admired was that at Batnae: the Emperor Julian visited it, but found only a useful
fruit-garden, and in the middle of it flower-beds and vegetables. Round about there
were other trees planted in regular order, and the emperor specially praises a fine
cypress-grove full of well-formed trees.
But it was not only the Greeks in Asia who thought it important to adorn their
towns with gardens: in the much smaller places in the Mother Country there was an
attempt to follow their example. In descriptions of Greek cities which we get from Hera-
cleides in the third century much is said of gardens, and he especially praises Thebes,
which is the best of all. In summer-time the quantity of water and the greenness of the
hills made a wonderful impression.
In Hellenistic times the private house seems to have been a very modest affair in
comparison with public places. It is true that Demosthenes grumbles that private buildings
are better than public, but this is only in relation to past times. There may no doubt have
been certain individual gardens on a larger scale, such as those of Plato and Epicurus:
in the fourth century a man of means made himself a garden when his neighbour gave
up his ground, but this would be an exception. One need only look at the plan of a town
like Priene, that was newly founded in the fourth century, to see how incredibly small
were the Greek dwelling-houses; but all the same it is to these that we must look for the
chance of developing fine court gardens at a later time.
The Greek house is really a court-house, i.e. the living-rooms face on the open
court, on one side of which is a hall supported by pillars. Out of this originated the peri-
style found later on in all the good houses, a court with a portico all round it. In most
private dwellings that have as yet been dug up this court is paved, so that it cannot have
been planted with flowers, although the Homeric Age did know garden courts. But what
was possible for a royal palace was for a long time to come beyond the possibilities of the
modest dwellings of private citizens. In Priene itself all the courts are paved. The statues
discovered in the courts of certain well-to-do houses, especially in that house in the
Theatre street where a bearded Hermes and a lion in terra-cotta were found in what
seems to be their old place, lead us to believe that there were also pot plants between the
statues, put there to make the court a pleasant place in which to stay. Another house at Priene
may possibly have had a strip of garden, for there is a pretty portico opening on to a
narrow strip which most likely was planted as a garden terrace. And the so-called House
of the Priest at Olympia distinctly proves that in rather larger places the court was
planted, for here traces are shown by excavation. It is obvious that as the affluence of
the upper class and their love of private life increased, the peristyle (expansible at need
History of Garden Art
le/zevos, the asylum with the temple of Apollo and Artemis. The great shady park had a
circumference of eighty stadia. The springs here were more abundant than the earth
had ever beheld, and the wonderful cypresses, three hundred in number, were, according
to tradition, planted by the Seleucids.
Later generations could not say enough of the beauty of the baths, the portico, the
places of amusement. The crowds found excellent hostels where vines grew even in the
rooms, while in the gardens were wafted to them the aromatic odours of the flower-beds.
Daphne is praised as the fairest spot on earth.
Syria is reported to have developed the art of gardening with special success. Pliny,
too, reports that the Syrian gardens are the most perfect. Next to Daphne the park most
admired was that at Batnae: the Emperor Julian visited it, but found only a useful
fruit-garden, and in the middle of it flower-beds and vegetables. Round about there
were other trees planted in regular order, and the emperor specially praises a fine
cypress-grove full of well-formed trees.
But it was not only the Greeks in Asia who thought it important to adorn their
towns with gardens: in the much smaller places in the Mother Country there was an
attempt to follow their example. In descriptions of Greek cities which we get from Hera-
cleides in the third century much is said of gardens, and he especially praises Thebes,
which is the best of all. In summer-time the quantity of water and the greenness of the
hills made a wonderful impression.
In Hellenistic times the private house seems to have been a very modest affair in
comparison with public places. It is true that Demosthenes grumbles that private buildings
are better than public, but this is only in relation to past times. There may no doubt have
been certain individual gardens on a larger scale, such as those of Plato and Epicurus:
in the fourth century a man of means made himself a garden when his neighbour gave
up his ground, but this would be an exception. One need only look at the plan of a town
like Priene, that was newly founded in the fourth century, to see how incredibly small
were the Greek dwelling-houses; but all the same it is to these that we must look for the
chance of developing fine court gardens at a later time.
The Greek house is really a court-house, i.e. the living-rooms face on the open
court, on one side of which is a hall supported by pillars. Out of this originated the peri-
style found later on in all the good houses, a court with a portico all round it. In most
private dwellings that have as yet been dug up this court is paved, so that it cannot have
been planted with flowers, although the Homeric Age did know garden courts. But what
was possible for a royal palace was for a long time to come beyond the possibilities of the
modest dwellings of private citizens. In Priene itself all the courts are paved. The statues
discovered in the courts of certain well-to-do houses, especially in that house in the
Theatre street where a bearded Hermes and a lion in terra-cotta were found in what
seems to be their old place, lead us to believe that there were also pot plants between the
statues, put there to make the court a pleasant place in which to stay. Another house at Priene
may possibly have had a strip of garden, for there is a pretty portico opening on to a
narrow strip which most likely was planted as a garden terrace. And the so-called House
of the Priest at Olympia distinctly proves that in rather larger places the court was
planted, for here traces are shown by excavation. It is obvious that as the affluence of
the upper class and their love of private life increased, the peristyle (expansible at need