Evolution of the Ancient Greek Garden

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The evolution of the ancient Greek garden

patrick bowe

To study the origins of the Western tradition of gardening, it is necessary to

study the evolution of the gardens of ancient Greece. Yet, garden historians

and archaeologists, with some notable exceptions, have devoted little atten-

tion to them.1 The evidence is scant and scattered. Yet, a compilation and

an attempted systemization of the evidence that is available may lead to an

increased interest in the subject. In particular, the advances in garden

archaeology exemplified in recent years in Pompeii and Herculaneum may

be applied to Greek sites.

No complete description or depiction of an ancient Greek garden is available.

No complete archaeological excavation has been made. We are obliged to

assemble a picture using a variety of occasional references and images. Poetic

evidence for gardening activity in Greece exists from at least the eighth century

BC through Homer’s epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey.2 Occasional

references by playwrights, philosophers, historians and orators such as

Aristophanes, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Euripides, Isaeus, Pindar, Plato,

Theophrastus and Xenophon give much useful, if scattered and incidental,

information on gardening in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Their relative

accuracy must be weighed. Most useful of these writers is Theophrastus (371–c.

287 BC) whose An Enquiry into Plants and De Causis Plantarum are exceptional

sources of information about the plants then under cultivation and their plant-

ing.3 Later authors such as Theocritus, Philostratus the Elder and Athenaeus

provide sporadic evidence of Greek gardens in the Hellenistic age. In addition,

visual evidence of various gardening activities can be found in occasional Greek

vase paintings of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. As yet, a relatively small

amount of evidence can be derived from archaeological investigation.

The Archaic period (eighth century BC to sixth century BC)

Although the descriptions of gardens in the poems of Homer, The Odyssey and

The Iliad, are of imagined gardens, it is reasonable to assume that they are based

on his experience of gardens of the time. One of the gardens he refers to in The

Odyssey is described as located adjoining a town.4 Another is located in the

suburbs — its site is described as ‘about as far from the town as a man’s voice can

carry’.5 A further garden is located on a farm deep in the countryside.6 All being

described by Homer as royal gardens, they can be understood as exceptional in

their size and sophistication.

The town garden evoked by Homer is adjacent to the courtyard of a royal

palace. Approximately four acres in extent, it is enclosed within a hedge or wall

and is traversed by two streams.7 One stream runs straight through the garden

whereas the waters of the other are distributed throughout the garden. This

seems to imply a garden that is laid out on a slope, the water traversing it by

gravity flow, as well as a system of watercourses, even a rudimentary one, for

irrigation. Such an irrigation arrangement is confirmed for orchards, at least, by a

passage from the sixth-century BC poet, Ibycum of Rhegium, who refers to

‘quinces and pomegranates watered by streams’8 and, further, by a passage from

the seventh-century BC poetess, Sappho, who describes how ‘cold water babbles

through apple-branches’.9 Homer mentions the practice of blocking and

unblocking a garden’s watercourses with a spade or mattock, directing the

water’s flow only to those plants in the garden that are, at any time, in need of

it.10 To give regular access to the watercourses for this purpose, a corresponding

network of pathways, even informal ones, will have been necessary. An arrange-

ment for irrigation by watercourses, and a corresponding arrangement of access

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pathways, may have been the chief characteristic of the layout of large gardens of

the period.

The city garden evoked by Homer is divided into three distinct areas: an

orchard, a vineyard and an area of small plots, presumably, for the cultivation of

small plants such as flowers and vegetables. Such an orderly division represents a

considerable advance on a garden of the time that may have had an ad hoc or

haphazard arrangement of its different plants. The orchard, containing apples,

figs, olives, pears and pomegranates, is imagined first, indicating its impor-

tance.11 The vineyard is pictured next, suggesting its position as that adjoining

the orchard. Homer evokes an image of vines trained on poles, a method that

must have given a distinctive appearance to vineyards of the time.12 The part of

the garden devoted to small beds or plots is described as located beyond the last

row of vines and therefore, perhaps, in an area of the garden furthest from the

palace.13 Homer’s description of the orchard and vineyard as fruiting, and the

small plot garden as blooming, through the year suggests that a considerable

variety of different fruit and flower cultivars were grown.14

The pomegranate aside, a similar range and variety of fruit trees is pictured by

Homer in the country garden.15 An indication of the scale of the garden is given

in his reference to its vineyard with its fifty rows of vines.16 The fact that the

vines are described as growing in rows suggests there was an ordered formality in

the planting.

There are many references in the poems to the care with which gardens are

maintained. Thetis claims that she raised her son as one tends ‘a plant in a goodly

garden’.17 Odysseus’ father is seen as an old man apparently taking more care of

his garden than he is of himself.18 Professional gardeners, such as Dolius, the first

gardener to be named in Western literature, are also employed.19 Odysseus’

sentimental attachment to his father’s garden, as conveyed by Homer, indicates

that gardens were already seen as more than mere utilities.

Summary

The evidence for gardens of this period comes principally from Homer’s poems

The Odyssey and The Iliad. They imply that substantial gardens, essentially

kitchen gardens, were an attribute of kingship. Of the series of royal gardens

that he evokes, one is in or adjoining a city, another is in a suburb, yet a third is in

the country. A picture emerges of gardens that are enclosed, traversed by an

irrigating stream or streams and divided into three sections — an orchard, a

vineyard and an area of small plots, presumably for vegetables and flowers. The

variety of fruit trees and vines is such that fruit is produced throughout most of

the year. Homer’s references to vines as planted in rows suggest an incipient

formality of layout and planting. A garden may have been valued already in this

time for more than its mere utility.

The Hellenic period (fifth century BC to fourth century BC)

Random pieces of evidence indicate the existence of city gardens. A message

scrawled on a sixth-century pottery shard found in Athens refers to a garden

gate, presumably in the city.20 The fourth-century orator, Isaeus refers to the

purchase by an Athenian of an adjoining property and the demolition of its

house in order to make a garden.21 In the cities of Eretria and Olynthos,

archaeologists have interpreted as gardens certain enclosures attached to houses

that have been left unpaved or half-paved.22

Extensive clusters of suburban gardens were located outside some cities.23

The suburban garden of the orator, Demosthenes, outside of Athens was

enclosed and entered through a gate.24 It had a dwelling associated with it25 as

had the garden of the famous fourth-century painter, Protegenes, outside the

city of Rhodes.26 Other suburban gardens do not seem to have had a dwelling

attached. Rather they were owned by city dwellers who visited them to work in

them and to enjoy them.27

Plato avers that: ‘Water is the most nourishing food a garden can have’28

Many suburban gardens seem to have been located close to a reliable source of

water — a river or a spring. It was advantageous for the irrigation required in a

dry climate. So many were the gardens established to benefit from the waters of

the river, Ilissos, south of Athens, that the entire area became known as ‘The

Gardens’.29 Although some gardens may have been hand watered from a well,30

large gardens were watered more efficiently by the creation of a system of

watercourses along which water might flow of its own accord to the plants

requiring it. A character in Euripides’ play, Electra, extols a garden that is

irrigated ‘with streams of river-water’.31

For an efficient arrangement of watercourses, irrigation water will have,

ideally, entered a garden at its highest level and then flowed, by gravity, through

the garden to its lowest level.32 Although the philosopher, Aristotle, alludes to a

hierarchy of channels in a garden, he provides no evidence as to their distribu-

tion or layout.33 If the rational system of dividing a garden into three sections

the evolution of the ancient greek garden

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that appears to have evolved in the Archaic period were continued in the

Hellenic period, the arrangement of watercourses will have been different in

each of the three sections. Within an orchard, the distribution channels will have

been relatively permanent and few as the trees will have been relatively large and

long-lived.34 A similar arrangement of channels will have been appropriate for a

vineyard as vines were allowed to grow often to tree size.35 By contrast, channels

leading to the small vegetable and flower plots will have been more numerous

and less permanent since these plantings will have been both small and short-

lived, perhaps changing from year to year in their location and direction. As a

result many of these channels will probably have been simple, furrows in the

soil.36

Efficiency of irrigation will have dictated that watercourses run straight, the

shortest distance between two plants, being a straight line. In any well-organized

garden, the overall arrangement of the irrigation system, and, consequently, of

the garden itself, will have been a geometric or formal one. It is reasonable to

speculate that the principal channels of the more important gardens may have

been lined with a water-impervious material to reduce water loss and soil

erosion but although stone-lined water channels to irrigate trees have been

excavated in the Athenian agora, evidence for their use in gardens has not

been found.

The opening and closing of the watercourses controlled the flow of

water, directing it to those plants that required it most.37 This procedure

will have necessitated an attendant system of access pathways with a similar

geometrical layout. In more modest gardens, the paths were probably

informal ones of beaten earth, in the more pretentious gardens they may

have been paved. The pathways in the royal garden at Syracuse in which

king Dionysius walked were, presumably, sufficiently comfortable for the

royal exercise.38 Equally comfortable must have been the paths imagined by

Euripides in his play Electra for the perambulations of the king of Mycenae

who is described as ‘walking in a well-watered garden to pluck a wreath of

tender myrtle-sprays for his head’.39

Just as efficiency of irrigation necessitates a formal system of watercourses in a

garden, it also necessitates a geometrical arrangement of planting. The aspiration

to formal planting is seen in the admiration of Lysander, the Spartan general, for

Persian orchards, ‘the accuracy of their growing, the straightness of their rows,

and the regularity of their angles’.40 Theophrastus, evidencing the practice of

formal planting in Greek orchards, recommends planting pomegranates, myrtles

and bays at regular intervals of no more than nine feet, apples and pears at slightly

larger intervals and almonds, figs and olives at intervals that were larger still41

(figure 1). Both Aristotle and Theophrastus imply that vines were grown in

rows, the former seeming to suggest that each row was staggered in relation to

the next in a geometric pattern that was referred to, in later, Roman times, as a

quincunx.42 Although there is no direct evidence, it is probable that vegetables

and flowers were also grown in rows, perhaps in drills. Certainly, crops in the

fields were aligned in ridges as is indicated by the chorus in Aristophanes’ play,

Peace.43

The range of orchard trees expanded from that pictured by Homer to include

myrtle, bay, almond, mulberry, medlar, cornel cherry, sorb and hazel. Of each

figure 1. A depiction of an olive grove with trees planted approximately ten to twelve feet apart

as recommended by Theophrastus. The practice shown here, known as ‘cudgelling’, of beating the

trees with sticks so that the ripe olives fall to the ground is decried by Theophrastus as it can damage a

tree by breaking the branches. A detail from an Athenian black-figure amphora, 550–500 BC

(British Museum, London).

studies in the history of gardens and designed landscapes: bowe

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species of orchard tree, there were now different named varieties.44 Plato’s

assertion that fruit was grown ‘for the sake of amusement and pleasure’ illustrates

the fact that orchards were no longer seen as producers only of basic food crops45

(figure 2). Although the flowering of trees did not impress Theophrastus — ‘none

of them have distinct gay colours’ — orchards were considered sufficiently

attractive to serve as locations for intimate social gatherings. The fifth-century

poet, Pherecrates evokes a fantastical gathering, its picnic: ‘spread out beneath

myrtle boughs and poppy anemones, the most beautiful apples ever seen hung

over their heads’.46

Vines were grown in ways more sophisticated than on the simple poles

evidenced in the Archaic period.47 One method involved the formation of

what Demosthenes refers to as ‘tree-vines’.48 In this method, three or more

vines were planted close together and then trained spirally upward and around

each other so that they fused to form a ‘tree trunk’. At head height, the new

growth was trained outwards to form ‘branches’, the spreading branches being

supported at their tips by forked wooden props.49 So, eventually, a tree-like

canopy was formed (figure 3). A second method consisted of training two or

figure 2. The elegance of attire of the women picking fruit suggests that an orchard was not only

a place of production but also of enjoyment. An Athenian red-figure column krater, 500–450 BC

(Metropolitan Museum, New York).

figure 3. A tree-vine with its multiple, spirally trained trunk and its lateral branches supported

by forked props. A detail from an Athenian black-figure amphora, 575–525 BC (Musee du Louvre,

Paris).


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three closely planted vines upwards in an open spiral so that they fused, in this

case only at intervals, to form an open ‘tree trunk’. Subsequent growth was

trained as an aerial espalier or hedge50 (figure 4). Of the variety of vine cultivars

grown during this period, Theophrastus writes: ‘ . . . there are as many kinds of

vine as there are of country . . . ’.51 Confirmation that a vineyard might be seen as

a place for the enjoyment of leisure, even of lovers’ dalliance, comes in a fifth-

century vase painting of the mythical meeting of the god, Dionysos, and his

bride, Ariadne, in a vineyard52 (figure 5).

The area of a garden devoted to small beds for vegetables and flowers

must have been in flux as a result of the constant sowing, watering,

manuring, hoeing and cropping indicated by Theophrastus throughout his

books as necessary for their cultivation. For maximum efficiency of irriga-

tion, plants would have been grown in rows in rectangular beds, perhaps

separated from each other, by informal or formal access paths.53 While

vegetables were grown for the table, flowers were grown mainly for the

wreaths, crowns and garlands, the use of which was an integral part of

Greek life. Xenophon writes of the soil that it ‘produces the flowers that

decorate altars and statues and with which men adorn themselves accom-

panied by the most pleasing odours and appearances’.54

Theophrastus’ descriptions of the vegetables and flowers cultivated in the

different seasons of the year allows us to conjure a picture of a fully productive

vegetable and flower garden of the period. Spring sowings of vegetables such as

leeks, long onions and orach might be brightened by rows of early spring

blooming wallflowers and gillyflowers, the latter in different colours, and later-

blooming meadowsweet and narcissus, the latter in two different forms.55 In

summer, rows of cucumber, radish, gourd, blite, basil, purslane and savory

might be lightened by the flowers of rose campion, lavender, marjoram, iris,

soapwort and lilies, the latter in different colours including an especially attractive

crimson one.56 In autumn the flowering of autumn crocus might have given the

plots a renewed brightness of colour. In winter, sowings of cabbage, radish and

turnip would have furnished the beds with their green foliage57 as would the year-

round vegetables such as beet, lettuce, rocket, monk’s rhubarb, celery, mustard,

coriander, dill and cress.58 Dropwort and violets, if carefully cultivated, would

bloom all year.59 Theophrastus writes of the varied contribution flowers made to a

garden: ‘. . . in herbaceous plants, the flowers show many and various colours,

both simple and in combination, and further, some of them have scent’.60 That

plants were appreciated for their beauty as well as their usefulness is confirmed by

figure 4. A fifth-century lekythos illustrates two vines trained upwards in an open spiral, the

subsequent growth being trained as an aerial espalier. (Landeshauptstadt Hannover, Museum

August Kestner).


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Xenophon who praises Persian gardens because they are ‘full of the good and

beautiful things that the soil produces’.61

Luxury fruits and vegetables of high quality and often out of season were

produced in addition to the basic food crops as a result of improvements in

the techniques of gardening.62 The Athenian orator, Isocrates, boasts: ‘as for

the fruits of the earth, our city . . . instructed the world in their uses, their

cultivation and the benefits derived from them’.63 The luxury that was

associated with the consumption of vegetables at this time is typified by

Aristoxenus, the Cyreniac philosopher, who watered his garden lettuce with

honeyed wine in the evening before he picked it so as to improve its

flavour.64

Other plants known to have been cultivated include herbs such as

calamint, bergamot mint, rue, thyme65 and sweet marjoram,66 the latter

two frequently transplanted from the wild.67 Roses, in gardens such as

that of Demosthenes, were grown in beds of their own68 as violets may

also have been69 (figure 6). As yet, there is no indication where large shrubs

such as oleander, chaste bush, mallow and southernwood, all known to have

been cultivated, were grown.70 They may have been scattered throughout

the garden.

The enjoyment of leisure in a garden may have led to the erection of

structures to facilitate it. A garden seen as a pleasant place in which to write —

the fifth-century playwright Euripides used his garden as a place in which to

write plays71 — may also have been the impetus for the erection of such

figure 6. In some gardens, roses were grown in separate beds. A woman enjoying the scent of a

rose is depicted in a detail on a sixth-century Attic red-figure vase (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,

Preusis Kultrubesitz: Antikensammlung).

figure 5. A vineyard as a place of recreation and relaxation is depicted in this scene of the myth

of the meeting of Dionysos and Ariadne in a vineyard. A detail from a late fifth-century volute-

krater by the Creusa Painter (Toledo Museum of Art).


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structures. The dwelling in the royal garden of Syracuse in which Plato lived for

some time was, probably, a substantial structure.72 However, more typical may

have been the grapevine arbours depicted in fourth- and fifth-century vase

paintings. The use of an arbour as the location for a banquet is shown on a

sixth-century amphora73 (figure 7). Figures relax in the shade of an arbour on a

fourth-century nestoris. From the cross bar of the arbour hangs a decorative

mask, known as an oscillum, because it was designed to oscillate or swing in the

wind74 (figure 8). These masks, usually representing gods associated with the

soil, were often hung temporarily during annual festivals such as those of the

sowing season.

The couch depicted in the former arbour boasts much decorative detail as

well as richly patterned textiles suggesting that furniture used out of doors

may have been just as elegant as that used inside.75 Artefacts such as pots

played a role in the garden. Although simple clay garden pots have been

excavated in Athens and at Eretria, more elegant, decorative pots, with

foliage being tended, are depicted in a fifth-century vase painting of the

mythological queen, Alcestis76 (figure 9). Of the arrangement of pots, we

know only of the general observation of Xenophon: ‘pots have a graceful

appearance when they are placed in a regular order’.77 An exceptional use of

garden pots occurred during an annual festival known as the ‘Gardens of

Adonis’. Broken pots, planted with small quantities of short-lived lettuce,

fennel, wheat or barley, were exposed on the rooftops of houses so that they

grew and withered quickly. The practice was designed as a reminder of life’s

transience78 (figure 10). Small-scale garden artefacts of a more utilitarian

character included baskets,79 trellis woven from flat-stalked lettuce80 and

stakes or posts on which to grow ivies81 (figure 11).

figure 7. In the shade of a grapevine arbour, Herakles relaxes on a bed to enjoy a banquet.

Note the trunk of the vine emerging from the ground behind the bed. A detail from an Athenian red-

figure amphora, 550–500 BC (Munich, Antikensammlungen).

figure 8. A garden scene in which a group of figures are shown in the shade of a grapevine

arbour from which a comic mask is suspended. A Lucanian red-figure nestoris, 400–350 BC (British

Museum, London).


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Summary

The gardens of which there is evidence during this period are the gardens of

the citizens of the city-states of Greece. Walled enclosures, they were

located both in the cities and in their suburbs. It is assumed that they

were divided rationally into three sections — orchard, vineyard, and vege-

table and flower gardens — as is evidenced in the Archaic period. A system

of irrigation, often comprising a geometrical arrangement of watercourses,

was a key determinant of a garden’s layout. Its efficiency also depended on a

system of planting in rows. This resulted in gardens with an overall formal

layout that may also have been the result of an aesthetic sense that manmade

beauty involved geometrical order.

Not only useful plants but also luxury fruits and vegetables were grown.

Arbours and bowers provided shade for outdoor living. Elegant furniture and

artefacts were characteristic of domestic exteriors as much as interiors. There

was a developing sense of the garden as a place for the enjoyment of leisure and,

in addition, an appreciation of the beauty of plants for its own sake. The fifth-

century statesman, Pericles, referred to the gardens around Athens as ‘accessories

that embellish a fortune’ indicating that they had also become vehicles for the

display of wealth’.82

figure 9. Plants are being arranged in highly decorated pots in preparation for the wedding of

Alkestis, the mythological Greek princess who is seen relaxing in a portico. A detail from a red-figure

epinetron, 450–400 BC (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).

figure 10. A broken clay pot with plants is about to be raised on to the roof of a house during

the festival known as the ‘Garden of Adonis’. Note that the clay pots on the ground are raised on

pedestals. An Athenian red figure lekythos, 425–375 BC (Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum).


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Hellenistic period (third century BC to first century BC)

As there is no substantial source like that of the writings of Theophrastus, the

literary evidence for gardens during this period is sporadic. Vase paintings are no

longer a source of pictorial information. However, archaeological material,

especially that derived from excavations of the palaces of the Hellenistic kings,

is more substantial than it is for earlier periods.

There appears to have been an increase in the number and quality of urban

gardens. The citizens of Tegea in the fourth century BC expected to have gardens

adjoining their houses, or, at least, close to their houses.83 The city of Thebes, newly

rebuilt in the third century BC, boasted more gardens than any other city in Greece.84

There is a reference to a Theban garden with a well.85 A garden hand watered from a

well may have been appropriate in small or city gardens, water having to be carried

only short distances (figure 12). Professional water carriers might be employed for

the task.86 The garden layout might be informal, free from the geometry associated

with gardens irrigated by an efficient system of watercourses.

A new conception of a city garden is associated with the philosopher,

Epicurus. Pliny the Elder relates: ‘Epicurus, that connoisseur in the enjoyments

figure 11. Artefacts seen in ancient Greek gardens included decorative woven baskets being

used here to carry the fruit crop. A detail from an Athenian red-figure hydria, 500–450 BC (San

Simeon, Hearst Historical State Monument).

figure 12. Hand watering was an option in gardens that did not have an irrigation system.

Here, Eros is depicted while watering flowers from a water pot. A fifth-century Athenian red-figure

lekythos (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).


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of a life of ease, was the first to lay out a garden at Athens; up to his time, it had

never been thought of, to dwell in the country in the middle of the town’.87

Pliny’s emphasis on Epicurus’ aim of creating the illusion of the country in an

urban setting indicates a desire to create a garden for some aesthetic effect rather

than one solely devoted to fruit and vegetable production.

Extensive clusters of suburban gardens, with their walls, hedges and ditches,

continued to surround cities not only in Greece but in other areas of the Eastern

Mediterranean also.88 Polybius records that the suburbs of Pherae, a town in

Thessaly, were ‘full of walls and gardens’.89 Although there is only one reference

to a specific garden in the suburbs of Athens, that of Aristomachus, which was

located near the Academy of which he was one time principal,90 the gardens

around the river Ilissos, in the area that was known as ‘The Gardens’, must have

continued in production.

Evidence of formal planting continues. A passage in Theocritus’ Idylls refers

to ‘vine rows’.91 A late Greek painting depicts an orchard in which the trees are

planted in rows.92 Another late Greek painting depicts an orchard with a path

‘along which to walk’ bordered by grass ‘tender and pleasant to lie on’ and ‘the

fragrance of apples hangs over the orchard’.93 The orchard is conceived as a

place of pleasure as well as of production. The appreciation of ornamental plants

is evident in Theocritus’ praise of: ‘a tall cypress that rises above a garden . . . and

graces it’.94 In an earlier passage he writes of ‘slender cypresses’ suggesting that

the fastigiate form of the Italian cypress may already have been in cultivation.95

Further evidence of his appreciation of ornamental plants lies in his preference

for the showy, cultivated flower rather than the simple, wild flower: ‘ . . . but

briar and windflower cannot compete with the rose which blooms in its bed by

the dry-stone wall’.96

These concerns were exemplified to a greater extent in the gardens of

tyrants and kings. A series of tyrants ruled Syracuse in Sicily, then part of the

wider Greek world, since the Hellenic period, laying out gardens on a scale

unmatched in mainland Greece. Dionysius I had plane trees conveyed to the

city of Rhegion where they became a prominent feature of his palace

complex.97 His son and Plato’s patron, Dionysius II, had an enclosed garden

next to his residence in Syracuse in which he used to walk. Aghathocles is

described by Polybius as proceeding to the theatre at Syracuse along a

covered walkway adjoining the ‘Meander’ garden. This, called after the

winding river, Meander, must have been a garden laid out on a sinuous

site or a garden with sinuous paths and plantings.98 If the latter were the

case, this would be a rare reference to an ancient Greek garden of informal

design. Hieron II commissioned a shipboard garden that exemplified mon-

archic extravagance. Garden-beds along the promenade decks were full of

plants watered by means of concealed lead pipes. Screens of white-berried

ivy and grapevines, planted in large pots and watered in the same way as the

garden beds, provided shade for the garden’s walkways that ended at a shrine

dedicated to Aphrodite.99 This garden seems to be among the earliest of

Greek gardens to have been designed for pleasure, its productivity in fruit

and vegetables being of secondary, or of no, importance.

A political and social change took place as a consequence of the conquest

of the whole of mainland Greece by the Macedonian kings during this

period. The increase in their kingly power was expressed in a fourth-century

royal palace at Vergina/Aigai. Excavations have uncovered its great raised

terrace, protected by an extended ornamental balustrade, that signals a new

monumentality in Greek residential garden design.100 The terrace’s outward

orientation, located so as to overlook an extensive plain, also signals a new

departure in domestic gardens, which until this time tended to be enclosed

and inwardly orientated in design.

As a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great in the subsequent fourth

century BC, many Greeks came in contact with the monumental gardens and

parks of the rulers of the Persian Empire. Individual Greeks such as the historian,

Xenophon, the Spartan general, Agesilaus and the Athenian general, Alcibiades

had seen these gardens a generation before. They had noted such characteristics

as their great extent, the precise geometrical layout,101 their beauty of aspect,102

their pavilions and water elements,103 the variety of their tree plantings and their

produce in all seasons.104 Alexander and his colleagues were not only to see the

gardens of the Persian royal palaces such those at Susa, Pasargadae and Persepolis

but also, living in them during their military campaigns, were to become very

familiar with them. They became familiar with the Assyrian palace of Nineveh

and must have been impressed, when they were in Babylon, by the scale of its

famous Hanging Gardens.105

The Greeks’ experience of these gardens influenced them in the creation

of similarly monarchic parks and gardens in their newly conquered terri-

tories. In their scale and complexity, these gardens mark a new departure in

Greek garden design. The most important was the park of the royal palace

of Alexandria begun by Alexander and continued and added to by his

successors, the Ptolemaic kings (figure 13). Occupying eventually about a


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quarter to a third of the city in area, the park included not only a number of

different palaces but also many pavilions and other buildings. It appears to

have been regularly laid out as were its Persian antecedents.106 However, its

regularity was broken by an element known as the ‘maiandros’. Called after

the winding river, Meander, its name is thought to indicate a winding

water-channel or canal. This element suggests, as does the Meander garden

at Syracuse, a gradual loosening of the formal geometry that until this period

was associated with Greek garden design. Another conspicuous feature of

the park was the mount or artificial hill known as the Paneion because it

was dedicated to the god, Pan. A spiral path wound to the top from which

views over the city and its surrounding landscape could be enjoyed.107

Earthen mounds were familiar to the Greeks from their ancient tradition

of erecting funerary or commemorative mounds. This is the first evidence of

an installation in a park or garden and represents a desire to look beyond the

enclosure of a garden similar to that represented by the outward-looking

terrace of the Macedonian palace at Vergina/Aigai. It is suggested that the

garden may have boasted a fountain or fountains as it was perhaps only here

that Apollonius Rhodius, of the Library of Alexandria, may have had the

opportunity of experiencing the kind of extravagant garden fountains he

describes in his book, Argonautica.108

King Ptolemy II had a collection of rare animals109 and king Ptolemy VIII

Physcon’s interest in birds was such that he wrote a treatise on them110

suggesting that the park may have boasted a menagerie and an aviary. The

park was the location of intermittent celebratory festivals. King Ptolemy

Philadelphus erected a magnificent temporary pavilion for such a festival.

Surrounded by an open gallery, it was roofed with branches of laurel and

myrtle and the floor was strewn with flowers even though it was winter.111

The royal park must have boasted a luxuriant planting. Since

Theophrastus’ time, the Greeks had been aware that Egypt enjoyed a mild

climate such that there was practically year-round growth112 and that many

trees that were deciduous elsewhere were practically evergreen there.113

Such was the reputation of the Egyptian coastal climate that Athenaeus,

writing later, asserted that no flower, including roses and snowdrops, ever

completely stopped blooming.114 Among the native trees mentioned by

Theophrastus as under cultivation, are two palms, the date palm and the

doum palm and other fruiting trees such as the sycamore fig, the Egyptian

plum tree, and the persea, a member of the avocado family.115 Imported tree

species were also grown, most notably the olive, the fig, the myrtle and the

pomegranate.116 The pomegranate took on a special flavour, the myrtle a

special fragrance, when they were grown in Egypt.117 Of the smaller

decorative plants flourishing in Egypt, Theophrastus mentions roses and

gillyflowers.118 The conquests of Alexander had given new impetus to the

exchange and acclimatization of plants between one part of his empire and

another. For example, native Mediterranean plants such as the laurel, the

myrtle and the box tree were cultivated in parks ‘beyond the Euphrates’.119

Harpalus, Alexander’s friend, introduced many new plants to gardens in

Babylon.120 It is likely that the royal garden at Alexandria will have bene-

fited from the plant exchange that characterized the new empire.

figure 13. Alexandria. The plan of the city with the regularly laid out royal park marked

‘basileia’, shown unshaded (W. Hoepfner, ‘Von Alexandria uber Pergamon nach Nikopolis.

Stadtebau und Stadtbilder hellenistischer Zeit’, in Akten des XIII. Internationalen Kongresses fur

klassische Archaologie Berlin 1988, Mainz 1990, pp. 275–285).


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After Alexander’s death, his empire was divided into separate kingdoms ruled

over by hereditary dynasties. These rulers created and maintained royal gardens of

significant extent as has been shown in the development by the Ptolemaic dynasty

of the royal park at Alexandria. The Seleucid dynasty laid out royal parks at

Apamea in Syria,121 at Ai Khanoum in Bactria122 and at Daphne, then a resort

near Antiochia.123 The park at Daphne was attached to a royal retreat as was the

park in Jericho belonging to the Hellenized kings of Judaea. The latter’s regular

layout, its pavilions and porticos, its formal pools set in large paved squares, all

arranged in a large, enclosed park, seems to echo in its conception the park of the

royal palace at Alexandria.124

On a smaller scale, there is evidence of the development also of the palace

courtyard garden during this period. A two-story courtyard in the palace of

the Attalid dynasty at Pergamon was found, on excavation, to have had no

pavement, suggesting that it may have been laid out as a garden.125 The

large courtyard attached to the first-century BC palace of the Ptolemaic

governor of the city of Ptolemais was found, on excavation, to have a

formal pool at its centre126 (figure 14).With steps leading down into it and

surrounded on all sides by balustrades and benches, the cement-lined pool

must have been used for bathing, the courtyard itself used as a garden or

place of elegant leisure.

Summary

Urban gardens became more numerous during this period while extensive

clusters of gardens continued in cultivation in cities’ suburbs. The literary

evidence, though sporadic, indicates that gardens continued to be enclosed

and formal in planting and that there was an increasing emphasis on the

pleasurable aspects of gardens and plants.

Of an order of magnitude and diversity hitherto unknown in the Greek world

were the gardens created by the Hellenistic kings under the influence of the

gardens they had seen during their military campaigns in the Near East. Though

generally still enclosed and formal in layout, they display, for the first time, a

desire to look beyond the garden enclosure into the wider landscape and to

incorporate informal elements within an overall formal layout.

Conclusion

Although the evidence is scant and scattered, it is possible to discern a

gradual evolution in Greek gardens. The earliest gardens of which there is

evidence, albeit indirect, were enclosed, traversed by a stream and divided

into three sections –orchard, vineyard and an area of small plots for flowers

and vegetables. Extensive and elaborate though they may have been, they

were mainly what are now termed kitchen gardens. Although the gardens of

the following Hellenic period were still mainly austere, orderly and disci-

plined kitchen gardens, the attitude to gardens had evolved beyond a purely

utilitarian one to one that included recreational and aesthetic components. A

further increase in emphasis on leisure and ornament characterized the

gardens of the succeeding Hellenistic period. The Hellenistic kings created

ornamental gardens of an extent and sophistication that was hitherto

unknown in the Greek world. As their empire expanded eastwards, the

Romans came into contact with these gardens and were influenced by them

in the creation of their own.

This assembly of information from many diverse sources, and its

attempted systematization, shows that the ancient Greeks pioneered the

Western approach to gardening and garden design. Their gardens may be

said to represent the birth of the Western garden. Many aspects of their

gardens reappear, in a modified form, in Roman gardens and in the gardens

of later periods of Western gardens history.

figure 14. Ptolemais. Reconstruction of the south facade facing the garden courtyard with its

central pool and flanking benches/balustrades shown in cross-section (from G. Pesce, ‘Il Palazzo delle

Colonne’ in Tolemaide di Cirenaica, Roma, 1950, plate VI).


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notes

1. The exceptions are valuable. See: Robin Osborne

‘Classical Greek Gardens: Between Farm and

Paradise’, Garden History Issues, Approaches, Methods,

edited by John Dixon Hunt (Washington, DC,

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,

1989), pp. 373–391; Massimo Venturi Ferriolo,

‘Homer’s Garden’, Journal of Garden History, ix/2,

1989, pp. 86–94; and Maureen Carroll-Spilleke, ‘The

gardens of Greece from Homeric to Roman times’,

Journal of Garden History, xii/2, 1992, pp. 84–101.

2. Homer, The Iliad, translated by A. T. Murray (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press; London: William

Heinemann Ltd, 1924) and Homer, The Odyssey, trans-

lated by A. T. Murray (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd,

1919). All subsequent references to The Iliad and The

Odyssey will be from these editions unless otherwise stated.

3. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, translated by

A. F. Hort (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1926) and

Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, edited and trans-

lated by Benedict Einarson and George K. K. Link

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London:

William Heinemann Ltd, 1990).

4. This fictional garden is located by Homer on the island

of the Phaeacians in the Ionian Sea. Homer, The

Odyssey, book 7, card 107.

5. Homer, The Odyssey, book 6, card 288. Only a brief

reference to the existence of this garden is made.

6. Homer, The Odyssey, book 24, card 327.

7. The method of enclosure is translated as ‘a hedge’ in

Homer, The Odyssey, translated by A. T. Murray


William Heinemann Ltd, 1919), book 7, card 107, while

it is translated as ‘a wall’ in Homer, The Odyssey, trans-

lated by Samuel Butler (Project Gutenberg on-line

book edition, 1999), book 5, line 58.

8. This is quoted in Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, trans-

lated by Charles Burton Gulick (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press; London: William

Heinemann Ltd, 1937), book XIII, pp. 600–601.

9. Sappho, ‘frg 2’, Greek Lyric, Sappho and Alcaeus,

edited and translated by David A. Campbell

(Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard

University Press, 2002) p. 57.

10. Homer. The Iliad, book 21, line 233. A further refer-

ence by Homer to the use of watercourses is in his

description of Calypso’s cave, the ground outside of

which is traversed by four closely aligned water-

courses irrigating beds of violets and other luxurious

plants. See Homer, The Odyssey, book 5, card 50.


12. Homer, The Iliad, book 18, card 561.


14. Homer’s description has suggested to Robin Osborne

that he is describing a ‘utopic’ garden. See Robin

Osborne, op. cit., p. 389.



17. Homer, The Iliad, edited by Samuel Butler, book 18,

line 52.


19. Dolius maintained the garden of Odysseus’

wife, Penelope. See Homer, The Odyssey, book

4, card 715.

20. Robin Osborne, op. cit., p. 378.

21. Isaeus, ‘On the Estate of Dicaeogenes’ Speeches, 5,

translated by E. S. Forster (Cambridge, MA:


Heinemann Ltd, 1923), section 11; and Berthe Carr

Rider, Ancient Greek Houses (Chicago: Argonaut

Library of Antiquities, 1964), p. 213.

22. Lisa C. Nevett, House and Society in the Ancient

Greek World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press, 1999), p. 111. The excavations

show that the area of these gardens was generally

less than that devoted to the houses with which

they were associated.

23. A problem must have arisen in such clusters with

regard to neighbouring gardens for Solon, an

Athenian lawmaker, recommended the adoption of

a law restricting tree planting too close to a garden’s

boundaries. The distance recommended was nine

feet in the case of olives and figs. See Plutarch,

‘Solon’, Plutarch’s Lives, translated by Bernadotte

Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press;

London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1914, 1916),

chapter 23, section 1.

24. Demosthenes, ‘Against Evergus and Mnesibulus’

Demosthenes, Speeches 41–50, translated by

A. T. Murray (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press; London: William Heinemann

Ltd, 1939), line 53.

25. Demosthenes, ‘Against Evergus and Mnesibulus’, op.

cit., line 53.

26. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, edited by John

Bostock, H. T. Riley (London: Taylor & Francis,

1855), book 35, chapter 37.


28. Plato, ‘Laws’, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols 10 and 11,

translated by R. G. Bury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1967 and 1968), p. 845c.

29. Athens was not the only place to have an area known

as the ‘gardens’. An area outside the city of Bosporus

on the Black Sea was also called ‘the gardens’. See

Aeschines, ‘Against Ctesiphon’, Aeschines, 3, trans-

lated by C. D. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1919), section 171.

30. Demosthenes, ‘Apollodorus against Polycles’, op.

cit., line 61. Solon proscribed a law allowing a

well to be dug on private property only if a

public well was further than four furlongs

away. See Plutarch, ‘Solon’, op. cit., chapter

23, section 5.

31. Euripides, Hippolytus, translated by David Kovacs

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forth-

coming), line 75. Although irrigation by water-

courses may have been efficient, it was not

necessarily regarded as best for the plants, and it did

bring problems. Theophrastus asserts: ‘ Fresh cold

water is the best, and the worst is that which is


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brackish and thick: wherefore the water from irriga-

tion ditches is not good, for it brings with it seeds of

weeds’ Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit.,

II. VII.v. 2. See also Theophrastus, De Causis

Plantarum, op. cit., III.8.3.

32. Irrigation water flowed directly from a public supply

or from a storage cistern on the property. See

Theophrastus, ‘The Unpleasant Man’, Characters,

translated by R. C. Jebb (London: Macmillan,

1870), chapter 20, line 9.

33. Aristotle, Parts of Animals (668a, 14–21) quoted by

Robin Osborne, op. cit., p. 382.

34. Irrigation channels leading to pomegranate and fig

trees may have been larger or more numerous as it

was considered they were in special need of

water. See Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op.

cit., I. II.vi. 12.

35. Theophrastus asserts that the vine is water loving and

so, also, must have needed special irrigation. See

note 34.

36. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., I. III.i. 3–5,

and II. VII.vi. 2–3. Theophrastus notes that the seeds

of perennial plants such as marsh celery were carried

through a garden by its irrigation waters.

37. Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, V.6.7.

38. Plato, letter 7, 348.

39. Euripides, ‘Electra’, The Complete Greek Drama, 2,

edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O’Neill, Jr.,

translated by E. P. Coleridge (New York: Random

House, 1938), line 775.

40. Xenophon, ‘Economics’, Xenophon in Seven Volumes,

translated by E. G. Marchant and O. J. Todd


William Heinemann Ltd, 1979), book 4, chapter 1, 20.

41. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit. I, II.v. 6.

He reports olives, figs and vines to be suitable for low

ground while apples pears and plums are recom-

mended for the lower slopes of hills. In the choice

of fruit trees, local and regional climatic conditions

were to be considered and cultivated varieties were to

be preferred to wild kinds. See Theophrastus, op. cit.,

I. I.iv. 1–2, I. IV.v. 3, II. VI.ii. 4–6, I. IV. xiv. 10–12,

I. II. viii. 1–3 and I. IV. xiv. 5–6.

42. Aristotle, ‘Politics’, Aristotle in Twenty Three

Volumes, 21, edited by H. Rackham (Cambridge,


Heinemann Ltd. 1952), book 7, section

1330b.Theophrastus also intimates that vines were

planted in rows. See Theophrastus, Enquiry into

Plants, op. cit., I. IV.iv. 5–8.

43. Aristophanes, ‘Peace’, The Complete Greek Drama,

edited by Eugene O’Neill, Jr. (New York: Random

House, 1938), line 1145.

44. Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, op. cit., V.1.8.

45. Plato, ‘Critias’, Plato in Twelve Volumes translated by

W. R.M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1925), p. 115.

46. Quoted by Athenaeus, op. cit., book VI, section 239.

47. Theophrastus refers to ‘a tree-climbing vine’. See

Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, translated by

Benedict Einarson and G. K.K. Link (Cambridge,


Heinemann Ltd, 1976), I.10.4. The perimeter of

some vineyards may have been planted with olive

trees as is suggested in Aristophanes, ‘The

Acharnians’ edited by Jeffrey Henderson

(Newburyport, MA: Focus Classical Library, 1997),

line 998. Theophrastus decries the practice of plant-

ing between vine rows because cultivation may

damage the roots of the vines. See Theophrastus, De

Causis Plantarum, op. cit., I.18.1.

48. Demosthenes refers to ‘tree-vines’. See Demosthenes,

‘Apollodorus against Nicostratus’, Demosthenes,

Speeches 51–61, translated by Norman W. DeWitt

and Norman J. DeWitt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1949) Speech 53, section 15.This method of training

vines is shown on a kylix, catalogued 12.198.2, in the

collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York.

49. Aristophanes indicates that vine props had about the

length of a spear. See Aristophanes, ‘Peace’, op. cit.,

line 1260 and Aristophanes ‘Wasps’, The Complete

Greek Drama, edited by Eugene O’Neill, Jr. (New

York: Random House, 1938), lines 1200, 1290.

50. Although not explicitly shown in the painting, it is

likely these vines may have been trained on a wooden

or rope substructure.

51. Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, op. cit., IV,11.6.

52. For other depictions of Dionysos and Ariadne in a

vineyard, see Guy Michael Hedreen, Silens in Attic

Black figure Painting (Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press, 1992).

53. Some gardens may have had an area devoted to

seedbeds as Theophrastus notes the practice of

raising seeds to seedling stage before transplanting

them into their final locations in the garden. See

Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit.,

II. VII.iv. 8–10. Other gardens had nursery

areas. Demosthenes refers to his ‘nursery beds of

olive trees set out in rows’. See Demosthenes,

‘Apollodorus against Nicostratus’, op. cit., speech

53, section 15.

54. Xenophon, ‘Economics’, op. cit., chapter 5, section 3.

55. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., II. VII.i.

2–3. Vegetables were cultivated in different varieties

or cultivars. See Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op.

cit., II. VII.iv. 4–6.

56. Ibid., II. VI.vi. 2–3, II. VII.i. 1, II. VII.i. 2–3 and

II. VII.i. 2–3. Because of their need of water,

Theophrastus sees an advantage in growing cucum-

bers around a garden well. See De Causis Plantarum,

op. cit., V. 6.5.

57. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., II,

VI.viii, 3–5.

58. Ibid., II. VI.vi. 3–5, II. VI.vi. 2–3.I. I.ii. 1–3, II. VII.i.

2–3. Celery, leeks and onion remained in the beds

over two seasons.

59. Ibid., II, VI.vi. 2–3.

60. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., I. I.xiii.

1–3, II. VII.ix. 2–4.

61. Xenophon ‘Economics’, Xenophon in Seven Volumes,

Volume 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1979),


62. The practice of producing fruit out of season was

ridiculed in Aristophanes lost play The Seasons. See

Robin Osborne, op. cit., p. 386.


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63. Isocrates, ‘Panegyricus’, Speeches and Letters, edited by

George Norlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1980), Volume 4, section 28.

64. Athenaeus, op. cit., book 1, p. 37.

65. Thyme, Theophrastus notes, though normally pros-

trate, i.e. growing in a mat along the ground, could be

trained to form a vertical mat, perhaps hanging down

over a wall. See Ibid., II, VI.vii. 5–viii. 1.

66. Ibid., II. VI.vii. 2–4.

67. Ibid., I. I.iii. 1–3. Theophrastus records the practice

of transplanting wild thyme from nearby Mount

Hymettus for cultivation in Athens. See Ibid.,

II. VI.vii. 2. He also mentions it being transplanted

from nearby mountains into the city of Sikyon. See

Ibid., II. VI.vii. 2.

68. Demosthenes, ‘Apollodorus against Nicostratus’, op.

cit., speech 53, section 16.Theophrastus notes that

roses of many different sizes and colours are in culti-

vation. See Theophrastus, op. cit., II. VI.vi. 3–5.

They included a multi-petalled form that grew on

Mount Panageus that the citizens of Philippi trans-

planted into their gardens. See Ibid., I. VI.vi. 3–5.

69. Aristophanes, ‘Peace’, op. cit., lines 560–579.

70. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., II. VI.vi. 2–3.

71. Ibid., book XIII, section 582.

72. Plato, ‘Letters’, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Volume 7,

translated by R. G. Bury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1966), letter 7, p. 347.

73. For an illustration of a further grapevine or, perhaps,

ivy arbour, see a bell krater in the Vatican, collection

no: 17370.

74. For an illustration showing three such masks suspended

in an arbour, see a bell krater in the Vatican collection

(collection no. not given) in A. D. Trendall, Red figure

Vases of South Italy and Sicily (London and New York:

Thames & Hudson, 1989), ill. 372.

75. Some furniture may have been used inside and out,

being carried from one to the other as required. See a

portable folding stool on a red figure loutrophorous

(320 BC), Museo Nazionale ‘D. Ridola’ Matera, vase

no 328. See also furniture being carried on an

Athenian red figure skyphos (475–425 BC), Basel,

Antikenmuseum und Sammlungen Ludwig, vase no

276060 and on an Athenian red figure pelike (500–450

BC), Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, vase no 206330.

76. Pots are identified as garden pots because of the drai-

nage hole in the bottom. See Theophrastus, Enquiry

into Plants, op. cit., I. IV.iv. 2–4. Excavations around

the Temple of Hephaiston in Athens confirm the use

of pots for raising and transplanting plants in the

Hellenistic period. See Maureen Carroll, Earthly

Paradises (London: The British Museum Press, 2003),

p. 92; and D. B. Thompson ‘The Garden of

Hephaistos’ Hesperia 6, 1937, pp. 396–425.

77. Xenophon, ‘Economics’, op. cit., chapter 8,

section 19.

78. A character in one of Aristophanes’ plays refers to pots

of vegetables being offered to an unnamed god. See

Aristophanes, ‘Plutus’ The Complete Greek Drama, edited

by Eugene O’Neill, Jr. (New York: Random House,

1938), line 1195. There is a reference to a potted seven-

leafed cabbage being offered to Pandora in the festival of

Thargalia. See Hipponax, Greek Lyric Poetry, 121.

79. Baskets were woven from young twigs of hazel and

willow. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit.,

I. III.xiii. 6, I. V.vii. 7, and I. III.xv. 2.

80. Ibid., I. VII.iv. 4–6. See also Pliny the Elder, The

Natural History, edited by H. T. Riley and John

Bostock (London: Taylor & Francis, 1855), book

19, chapter 38.

81. Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, op. cit., I.12.9,

and Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., I. II.i. 1.

82. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (London:

J. M. Dent; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1910), book

2, chapter 62, section 3.


84. Pausanias, Guide to Greece, trans. by Peter Levi

(London: Penguin, 1971), Vol. 1, p. 323, n. 39.

85. Plutarch, ‘Alexander’, Plutarch’s Lives, edited by

Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1919), chapter 12, section 2.

86. Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes,

Volumes 4–8, translated by C. H. Oldfather

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press;

London: William Heinemann Ltd,1989), book 17,


87. Pliny the Elder, op. cit., book 19, chapter 19.

88. The environs of Megara, near Carthage, were

‘planted with gardens and full of fruit-bearing

trees divided by low walls, hedges and brambles,

besides deep ditches full of running water’. See

Appian, ‘The Punie Wars’, The Foreign Wars, edi-

ted by Horace White, (New York: The Macmillan

company, 1899). Jerusalem was surrounded by gar-

dens with ‘hedges and walls which the inhabitants

had made about their gardens and groves of fruit

trees’. See Flavius Josephus, The Works of Flavius

Josephus, translated by William Whiston (Auburn

and Buffalo: John E. Beardelsy, 1895), book 5,

section 106.

89. Polybius, Histories, book 18, chapter 20.

90. See Hyperides, ‘Against Demosthenes’, Minor Attic

Orators, translated by J. O. Burtt (Cambridge, MA:


Heinemann Ltd, 1962), speech 5.

91. Theocritus, The Idylls, translated by Anthony Verity

(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002), idyll 3,

line 48.

92. Philostratus, Philostratus the Elder Imagines. Philostratus

the Younger Imagines. Callistratus Descriptions, translated

by Arthur Fairbanks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard


1931), book I, section 6.

93. Philostratus the Elder, op. cit., book 1, section 6.

94. Theocritus, op. cit., idyll 18, line 30.

95. Ibid., idyll 11, line 45.

96. Ibid., idyll 5, line 95.

97. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., I. IV.v. 6.

98. Polybius, op. cit., book 15, chapter 30.

99. Athenaeus, op. cit., book V, p. 496.

100. Inge Nielsen, Hellenistic Palaces (Aarhus, Denmark:

Aarhus University Press, 1999), p. 81.

101. Xenophon, ‘On Economics’, op. cit., book 4, chap-

ter 1, section 20.

102. Diodorus Siculus, op. cit., book 14, chapter 80,

section 2.


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103. Plutarch, ‘Alcibiades’, op. cit., chapter 24, section 5.

104. Xenophon, ‘Anabasis’, Xenophon in Seven Volumes,

Volume 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1980),

book 1, chapter 4, section 10.The latter areas must

have been distinct, for practical reasons, from the

parks, or part of parks, described by Xenophon as

stocked and maintained with wild animals. See

Xenophon, ‘Anabasis’, op. cit., book 1, chapter 2,

section 7.

105. Plutarch, ‘Alexander’, op. cit., chapter 73, section 2.

106. Inge Nielsen, op. cit., pp. 131ff.

107. Strabo, Geography, 7.1.8–10.

108. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, translated by

R. C. Seaton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1912), book

III, line 215.

109. Inge Nielsen, op. cit., p. 133.

110. Athenaeus, op. cit., book XIV, p. 654.

111. Ibid., book V, p. 449.

112. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., IV,11.8

and IV. 12.3.

113. Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, op. cit., I.11.5 and

Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., I.ix. 3–5.

114. Athenaeus, op. cit., Book V, pp. 449–479.

115. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., IV.ii. 5–7.

116. Ibid., IV.ii. 8–11.

117. Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, op. cit., II,13.4.

118. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., VI. V.iii, 5–6.

119. Ibid., book 15, chapter 1, section 58.

120. Theophrastus records that he was successful with

box and lime but failed with ivy. See

Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, op. cit., I. IV.iv.

1–2. See also Plutarch, ‘Alexander’, op. cit., chapter

35, section 8.

121. Plutarch, ‘Demetrius and Anthony’, Lives,

IX, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge,


Heinemann Ltd, 1920), Chapter 50, sections 1–6.

122. Inge Nielsen, op. cit., p. 127.

123. Strabo, op. cit., book 16, chapter 2, section 6; and

Inge Nielsen, op. cit., p. 115 and n.222.

124. Inge Nielsen, op. cit., pp. 138 and 156.

125. Ibid., op. cit., p. 107.

126. Ibid., op. cit., pp. 146ff.


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Documents

Evolution of the Ancient Greek Garden