DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0131
The Roman Empire
103
The second group of buildings lies in the vineyard, and seems to have a different
approach. Here, too, the place is marked by two other colonnades and several more rooms,
and also two pavilions, with no garden, but only looking out on the vineyard. Apparently
one would feel entirely in the country here: in the Laurentinum villa we shall see how
completely the kitchen-garden was adapted for the pleasure of the occupants of these
best rooms.
"All these places, and their amenities, are surpassed by the hippodrome"—thus
Pliny begins his description of the third part, the park. This place, too, takes its name
from the old athletic games; and much as it has lost of its former significance, it still
keeps the rectangular form with one side rounded, and the chief features of its plantation.
The hippodrome lies to the east of the villa, which fronts southward, and it seems to be
on a lower level, for the windows of the eastern triclinium look down on the tops of the
trees; but the whole plan can only come out clearly when excavations have been made
on the spot.
Pliny's account is so pleasant and easy to follow that it shall be given in his own words:
In the front of these agreeable buildings lies a very spacious hippodrome, entirely open in the
middle, by which means the eye, upon first entrance, takes in its whole extent at one view. It is encom-
passed on every side with plane-trees covered with ivy, so that while their heads flourish with their own
green, their bodies enjoy a borrowed verdure; and the ivy twining round the trunk and branches spreads
from tree to tree, and links them together. Between the plane-trees are planted box-trees, and behind
these laurels, which blend their shade with that of the planes. The raised path around the hippodrome,
which here runs straight, bends at the farther end into a semicircle and takes on a new aspect, being
embowered in cypress-trees and obscured by their denser and more gloomy shade; while the inward
circular alleys (for there are several) enjoy the full sun. Farther on there are roses too along the path,
and the cool shade is pleasantly alternated with sunshine.
Having passed through these manifold winding alleys, the path resumes a straight course, and
at the same time divides into several tracks, separated by box hedges. In one place you have a little
meadow; in another the box is interposed in groups, and cut into a thousand different forms; sometimes
into letters expressing the name of the master, or again that of the artificer; whilst here and there little
obelisks rise intermixed alternately with apple-trees, when on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant
regularity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural nature; in the centre of
which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these are interspersed clumps of
the smooth and twining acanthus; then come a variety of figures and names cut in box.
At the upper end is a semicircular bench of white marble, shaded with a vine which is trained upon
four small pillars of Carystian marble. Water, gushing through several little pipes from under this bench,
as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons who repose themselves upon it, falls into a stone
cistern underneath, from whence it is received into a fine polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that
it is always full without ever overflowing. When I sup here, the tray of whets and the larger dishes are placed
round the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little ships and water-fowl. Opposite
this is a fountain which is incessantly emptying and filling, for the water which it throws up to a great
height falling back again into it, is by means of connected openings returned as fast as it is received.
Fronting the bench stands a chamber of lustrous marble, whose doors project and open upon a lawn;
from its upper and lower windows the eye ranges upward or downward over other spaces of verdure. . . .
In different quarters are disposed several marble seats, which serve as so many reliefs after one is wearied
with walking. Next each seat is a little fountain; and throughout the whole hippodrome small rills con-
veyed through pipes run murmuring along, wheresoever the hand of art has seen proper to conduct them;
watering here and there different spots of verdure, and in their progress bathing the whole.
This is the clearest and most intelligible account of a garden ground that antiquity
has bequeathed to us. The plan is fixed by the shape of the hippodrome, and its original
planting, and is very simple. The chief feature is as usual several avenues, and they no
doubt are wide enough for the small vehicles used in those days to drive in. This plan is
easily to be seen from the middle space that makes one whole out of the various parts.
103
The second group of buildings lies in the vineyard, and seems to have a different
approach. Here, too, the place is marked by two other colonnades and several more rooms,
and also two pavilions, with no garden, but only looking out on the vineyard. Apparently
one would feel entirely in the country here: in the Laurentinum villa we shall see how
completely the kitchen-garden was adapted for the pleasure of the occupants of these
best rooms.
"All these places, and their amenities, are surpassed by the hippodrome"—thus
Pliny begins his description of the third part, the park. This place, too, takes its name
from the old athletic games; and much as it has lost of its former significance, it still
keeps the rectangular form with one side rounded, and the chief features of its plantation.
The hippodrome lies to the east of the villa, which fronts southward, and it seems to be
on a lower level, for the windows of the eastern triclinium look down on the tops of the
trees; but the whole plan can only come out clearly when excavations have been made
on the spot.
Pliny's account is so pleasant and easy to follow that it shall be given in his own words:
In the front of these agreeable buildings lies a very spacious hippodrome, entirely open in the
middle, by which means the eye, upon first entrance, takes in its whole extent at one view. It is encom-
passed on every side with plane-trees covered with ivy, so that while their heads flourish with their own
green, their bodies enjoy a borrowed verdure; and the ivy twining round the trunk and branches spreads
from tree to tree, and links them together. Between the plane-trees are planted box-trees, and behind
these laurels, which blend their shade with that of the planes. The raised path around the hippodrome,
which here runs straight, bends at the farther end into a semicircle and takes on a new aspect, being
embowered in cypress-trees and obscured by their denser and more gloomy shade; while the inward
circular alleys (for there are several) enjoy the full sun. Farther on there are roses too along the path,
and the cool shade is pleasantly alternated with sunshine.
Having passed through these manifold winding alleys, the path resumes a straight course, and
at the same time divides into several tracks, separated by box hedges. In one place you have a little
meadow; in another the box is interposed in groups, and cut into a thousand different forms; sometimes
into letters expressing the name of the master, or again that of the artificer; whilst here and there little
obelisks rise intermixed alternately with apple-trees, when on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant
regularity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent beauties of rural nature; in the centre of
which lies a spot surrounded with a knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these are interspersed clumps of
the smooth and twining acanthus; then come a variety of figures and names cut in box.
At the upper end is a semicircular bench of white marble, shaded with a vine which is trained upon
four small pillars of Carystian marble. Water, gushing through several little pipes from under this bench,
as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons who repose themselves upon it, falls into a stone
cistern underneath, from whence it is received into a fine polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that
it is always full without ever overflowing. When I sup here, the tray of whets and the larger dishes are placed
round the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little ships and water-fowl. Opposite
this is a fountain which is incessantly emptying and filling, for the water which it throws up to a great
height falling back again into it, is by means of connected openings returned as fast as it is received.
Fronting the bench stands a chamber of lustrous marble, whose doors project and open upon a lawn;
from its upper and lower windows the eye ranges upward or downward over other spaces of verdure. . . .
In different quarters are disposed several marble seats, which serve as so many reliefs after one is wearied
with walking. Next each seat is a little fountain; and throughout the whole hippodrome small rills con-
veyed through pipes run murmuring along, wheresoever the hand of art has seen proper to conduct them;
watering here and there different spots of verdure, and in their progress bathing the whole.
This is the clearest and most intelligible account of a garden ground that antiquity
has bequeathed to us. The plan is fixed by the shape of the hippodrome, and its original
planting, and is very simple. The chief feature is as usual several avenues, and they no
doubt are wide enough for the small vehicles used in those days to drive in. This plan is
easily to be seen from the middle space that makes one whole out of the various parts.