Canal In The Garden Of D. Octavius Quartio at Pompeii (between AD 62 and 79). In imitation of the canals of villa-parks, this wealthy householder
laid out a series of elaborate waterways and fountains, spanned by pavilions and pergolas. In the middle pavilion is a statue of the sleeping Ariadne,
derived from a well-known Hellenistic type.
Silenus played among the plane trees of Pompey's porticoes in Rome. The importance of water displays in Pompeian house-gardens has already been
mentioned. In addition to statuettes pouring water into basins, many peristyles enclosed large ornamental pools fed by jets of water or fountain-niches
at the rear, while other gardens, foreshadowing a vogue of the third and fourth centuries A.D., had whole walls enlivened by a facade of niches and
pavilions (aediculae) from which water flowed. Two large gardens in the east of the city, those of D. Octavius Quartio and Julia Felix, contained
central canals with bridges at intervals, sculptures along the edges, and open pergolas bestriding them. On either side ran pathways overhung by
climbing plants. A generation later the Younger Pliny took great pride in a fountain which played within a vine-arbour in his Tuscan villa and whose
marble basin he and his guests used as a kind of supper table, resting larger dishes on the rim and allowing small dishes of hors d'oeuvres to float in
the water.
The trees and plants cultivated in ornamental gardens put the accent on greenery rather than floral displays. Besides the box and cypress trees favoured
by topiarists, the ancient sources mention plane trees, laurel, myrtle, hound's tongue, acanthus, maidenhair, butcher's broom (whose evergreen foliage,
we are told, was sometimes used in wreaths to make up for a lack of flowers), and a shrub called 'Jupiter's beard' which had silvery leaves and could
be trimmed into a round shape. Our picture is supplemented by the shrubberies represented in garden paintings; among the items identified by modern
botanists are such flowering plants as poppies, oleanders, lilies, and viburnum. Roses, one of the few flowers attested in Pliny's garden at Tifernum,
are shown next to fountain-basins in a mural in the House of the Floral Chambers at Pompeii.
An idea of the overall appearance of small private gardens in the early Imperial age is obtainable at Pompeii, where the recent work of Wilhelmina
Jashemski, involving excavation, the study of carbonized plant-material, and pollen analysis, has opened a whole new perspective on the subject. A
surprisingly large proportion of peristyle-gardens has turned out to contain fruit- and nut-trees, not to mention vines, all grown for food rather than for
fancy; but purely ornamental gardens laid out to formal designs certainly existed in the better appointed houses. The more pretentious examples,