An Investigation of Roman horti using Spatial Theory: Could Roman Garden Space have been used for more than pleasure?

Graduate School of Humanities

University of Amsterdam

September 2015

Catherine Lees-Millais (10847758) Table of Contents

Abbreviations ...... 3 Introduction ...... 5 Chapter I; An Insight into the Spatial Turn ...... 6 A Study of Agency ...... 12 Mutability of Meaning ...... 13 Space and Identity ...... 15 Roman Notions of Space ...... 17 The Building Traditions of Rome ...... 20 Roman Space and Movement ...... 21 Movement, the Gaze and Space ...... 25 Chapter II; Gardens ...... 29

Introduction ...... 30 History of the Roman Garden ...... 33 The Garden as Liminal Space ...... 36 Memory and Time in the Garden ...... 38 The Garden's Sacred Aura ...... 39 Philosophy in the Garden ...... 40

Roman Domination ...... 42

Danger in the Garden ...... 43

Pleasure in the Garden ...... 45

Conclusions ...... 46

Chapter III; The Development of the Uses of horti ...... 47

Pompey ...... 48

Caesar ...... 51 Augustus ...... 53 Conclusion ...... 60

Bibliography...... 61

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Abbreviations

Catul. Catullus.

Cic. Ag. Cicero, De Lege Agraria.

Cic. Att. Cicero, Ad Atticum.

Cic. Cael. Cicero, Pro Caelio.

Cic. De Orat. Cicero, De Oratore.

Cic. Mur. Cicero, Pro Lucio Murena.

Cic. Fat. Cicero, De Fato.

Cic. Fin. Cicero, De Finibus.

Cic. Inv. Cicero, De Inventione.

Cic. ND. Cicero, De Natura Deorum.

Cic. Rep. Cicero, De Re Republica

Cic. Acad. Cicero, Academica.

Dio. Cass. Dio Cassius, Romaika.

Don. Donatus, Interpretationes Vergilianae.

Hes. WD. Hesiod, Works and Days.

Hor. Carm. Horace, Odes.

Hor. Sat. Horace, Satires.

Mart. Martial, Epigrammata.

Ov. Ars. Ovid, Ars Amatoria.

Pl. Poen. Plautus, Poenulus.

Plat. Prot. Plato,Protagoras.

Pl. As. Plautus, Asinaria.

Pl. Truc. Plautus, Truculentus.

Plin. Ep. Pliny the Younger, Epistulae.

Plin. Nat. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia.

Plut. Caes. Plutarch, Caesar.

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Plut. De Exilio. Plutarch, On Exile.

Plut. Pomp. Plutarch, Pompei Viri Illustris Vita.

Plut. Vit. Cim. Plutarch, Cimon.

Quint. Inst. 11 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book 11.

Sall. Cat. Sallust, Catilinae Conuiratio.

Suet. Aug. Suetonius, Divus Augustus.

Suet. Jul. Suetonius, Divus Julius.

Ter. Ad. Terence, Adelphoe.

Val. Max. Valerius Maximus, De Factis Dictisque Memorabilibus .

Varr. Ling. Varro, De Lingua Latina.

Varr. RR. Varro, De Re Rustica.

Vitr. Vitruvius, De Architectura.

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Introduction

Classical scholars still continue to underestimate the contribution of Roman gardens to our understanding of Roman culture, despite increasing numbers of archaeologically known gardens and the huge amount of pictorial gardens found throughout the Roman world. Recently, however, archaeologists and art historians are beginning to develop a more nuanced notion of the Roman garden and to integrate this into the larger picture of Roman space, society and culture. This paper aims to be part of that very integration; an example of the new facets of Roman social history that are made visible by a new approach to Roman garden space.

The course of my paper will pursue the following trajectory; firstly I shall undertake a review of modern spatial and agency theory, and consider the ways in which this might be applied to ancient Rome. To do so, an exploration of Roman attitudes to constructed space is also necessary. This chapter will also contain an investigation of the relationship between movement and space, due to the fact that gardens are spaces designed for movement. Second, an exploration of Roman horti will of course be necessary. This will include a brief introduction into the historiography of garden spaces and Roman notions of horti. Third, I shall investigate the development of the use of horti at the end of the Republic into the Principate, from Pompey to Augustus. I contend that a spatial approach such as mine creates an illuminating effect upon the additional implications of Augustus' use of public horti in Rome.

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Chapter I: An Insight into the Spatial Turn

In order to examine the possible uses and effects of green spaces in ancient Rome, we need to first investigate the different approaches that have previously been taken towards a study of 'space'. Subsequently it will be seen that an examination of the ancient world through the lens of spatiality and in terms of a socio- spatial dialectic can provide a refreshing new take on spaces already much studied. This chapter will include an attempt to explore the current trends in spatial scholarship, the posited connection between space and society and whether space can be attributed with any sort of agency. Since spatial study is still particularly indeterminate this opening chapter focuses on exploring the theoretical basis for the study of space and its interaction with social processes from varying perspectives of different disciplines from anthropology to geography. The aim is to introduce the reader to the type of theoretical and intellectual approach scholars are beginning to use in study of the ancient world.

Since the 1970s concepts of space have begun to evolve from a mathematical, geographical, static entity to that of a more fluid social construct.1 The word 'space' in the past has evoked the idea merely of an empty area, but since then scholarship concerned with 'The Spatial Turn' has asserted the notion of a socio- spatial dialectic. Urban geographers such as Soja (perhaps the strongest proponent of the connection between social processes and space), have pointed out that 'space itself may be primordially given, but the organisation, use and meaning of space is a product of social translation, transformation and experience'.2 Thus we can say that it is true that 'there is no such thing, in a social sense, as empty space'.3 One corollary of space being a social product is that each society produces its own variants of space, and therefore social space will be a useful tool for the analysis of any society. Ancient Rome had its own spatial practices, perhaps hugely different to ours today, and this makes space a valuable category of study that allows us

1 Scott (2013) 170. 2 Soja (1980) 210. 3 Tonkiss (2005) 3.

[6] further insight into the ancient world. Indeed, urban space has been on the agenda of Roman scholarship since the 1980's, and the rise in popularity of interdisciplinary approaches has enabled useful communication between different departments of Roman scholarship. Since the 1990's scholars concerned with landscape have helped promote the idea that examining the topography of the city of Rome encourages a more wide ranging exploration of what being Roman really meant.4 Although historians, geographers and art historians have now internalised the idea that landscape is a message to be decoded, 'this concept is only intermittently applied to Roman gardens, usually in the context of villa gardens which... are part of the sum but not the whole of Roman garden space. From the emphasis placed on horti in literature [especially at the beginning of the principate] it is clear that they were places eliciting a special set of responses'.5 There is an urgent need to relocate the role of the garden within a wider framework of conceptual space study.

However, the relation between space and social life is certainly still very poorly understood, presenting an area of heated controversy in the social sciences. This may partially be due to the variety of approaches used by different disciplines, each of which has also developed its own terminology. Indeed, 'epistemologico-philosophical thinking has failed to furnish the basis for a science which has been struggling to emerge for a very long time, as witness an immense accumulation of research and publication. That science is- or would be- a science of space'.6 Work in this area often produces mere descriptions, which are far from analytical or theoretical status. However, at least a discourse on space has begun. The semiology of this discourse raises difficulties because it is an incomplete body of knowledge, expanding rapidly without any sense of limitation. It is not within the scope of this paper to suggest an approach allowing forward movement through this academic minefield, but instead to highlight what a potentially dynamic field of study space can be, and how useful it may be to ancient historians. The summary below of different approaches to spatial study shows just how convoluted the discipline currently is. Despite this, it is important to introduce any newcomers to the mode of intellectual thought that is taking hold in order to cast off the more traditional institutionalised scholarly approaches towards space and material culture.

4 Spencer (2010) 1. 5 Von Stackelberg (2009) 49. 6 Lefebvre (1991) 7.

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Some have used architecture as a basis for building a new approach to the theory of the society-space relation. 'However much we may prefer to discuss architecture in terms of visual styles, its most far-reaching practical effects are not at the level of appearances at all, but at the level of space. By giving shape and form to our material world, architecture structures the system of space in which we move. In that it does so, it has a direct relation- rather than a merely symbolic one- to social life, since it provides the material preconditions for the patterns of movement, encounter and avoidance which are the material realisation- as well as sometimes the generator- of social relations. In this sense, architecture pervades our everyday experience far more than a preoccupation with its visual properties would suggest'.7

Among structural anthropologists, Levi-Strauss has suggested an approach that sees in space the opportunity to 'study social and mental processes through objective and crystallised external projections of them'.8 This means that Levi-Strauss is of the opinion that the spatial configuration of a society can be seen as a straightforward embodiment of the social and mental attitudes of that society. The issue with his approach is that he does not take into account the variability of different societies. From a spatial perspective societies vary 'not only in the type of physical configuration, but also in the degree to which the ordering of space appears as a conspicuous dimension of culture.' It appears that some cultures invest much more in the physical ordering of space than others. Nor can space be merely an external projection of social and mental processes, since modes of production for social space are much more complex than this. Space must not be reduced to a simple by- product of external causative agencies, as we shall see later.9 It should also be recognised that space is not entirely a neutral commodity. Individuals are born into an urban environment that has already been constructed, and their social choices are made in the context of this urban environment. Urban space in particular is a product of a specific historical time and society. Moreover, urban space has its own structure and rules; it cannot be arranged in a wholly random way. For instance, a building must somehow be entered from a street. 'The preferences of individuals, the concentration or aggregation of activities, the through-put of people and the ideology' of Roman society all place their constraints

7 Hillier and Hanson (1984) IX. 8 Hillier and Hanson (1984) 3. 9 Hillier and Hanson (1984) 4-5.

[8] upon any random qualities of space. 'In effect, it is the urban society that alters the random nature of space and moulds space to its needs.' Rome and the urban space it contained were social products rather than planned entities.10

The approach of Lefebvre is one which has been utilised by many scholars. He divides space into a conceptual triad. The first is spatial practice, or perceived space, which includes the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation. Second, he describes representations of space, or conceived space; the space of scientists and planners. This has ties to the relations of production and hence to knowledge and signs. Lastly, he lists representational spaces; space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols.11 Soja refined these pluralities into a system of 'Thirdspace'. Firstspace refers to geophysical reality as it is perceived by observers. Secondspace is the mapped reality as it is presented to observers. Thirdspace is the reality as it is lived and practiced, the rapidly continually changing space in which the observer lives. These concepts of space may be well demonstrated using the example of a market space. Firstspace distinguishes a market as a geographical area in a town. Secondspace sees it as a place where goods are bought and sold. From the point of view of Thirdspace it is a place where people come together to socialise, learn news, and buy local produce. The space of the market is given meaning by the human actors and the socialising it encourages, and every person experiences it in a different way.

This schema may be applied to garden spaces. Firstspace is the material reality perceived by visitors; lawns, flowerbeds and ornaments. Secondspace is the literary or pictorial garden, a representation which excludes elements considered socially undesirable or un-picturesque (the compost heap or animal dung). Thirdspace encompasses lived space, the cultural value of the activities and events located within the garden.12 The Thirdspace is not only distinct from the other two, but also encompasses them; it is the space in which all spaces come together. This approach emphasises space as a medium for actions and relationships, and highlights the dynamic and reflexive relationship between architecture, the body, and the psyche. 'Thirdspace is also a dialectical perception of space in which the

10 Laurence (1994) 19. 11 Lefebvre (1991) 33-40. 12 Soja (1996) 29.

[9] encounters between spatiality and sociality (or spatiality and historicity) become a triad of spatial, social, and historical interaction'.13 Whilst I shall not be utilising this schema in my own study, its description provides an introductory methodology that allows those new to the study of space to begin to understand the multifaceted nature of social space.

Space is not only a product of social processes, but also reflexively influences and articulates such processes. An awareness of this reflexive action is not new; even Cicero can be seen to comment upon it.

''We see the wide differences between the natural characters of different localities.... Can the nature of the locality cause us to take our walk in Pompey's Portico rather than in the Campus? In your company sooner than in someone else's?'' (Cic. Fat. 4.7-8).

Winston Churchill also voiced the same notion, but in a characteristically succinct manner. When discussing how to rebuild the House of Commons after the destruction of the wartime bombing in 1943 he stated; 'We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us'.14 Space can be attributed with the agency to dictate codes of behaviour, even long after the events of social practices that shaped the space have faded. The behavioural sets demanded by sacred and secular spaces are an illustration of this. It seems that once a space has been built or created it is spectacularly obdurate in agency, and it will change those who use it, not the other way around. This idea is what interests the advocates of the Situationist movement, termed as the 'psychogeographies' of urban form.15 This deals with the effect of geographical setting on behaviour and mood of individuals. Historical, cultural and ideological associations are embedded within spaces, and are transferred onto the viewer and the act of viewing. Awareness of these processes aids any translation of images, monuments and spaces into an experiential understanding of a space as a whole, particularly that of ancient Rome. We need to develop a terminology that extends beyond the visual to include the entire spatial experience. It is true that attempts to capture emotional responses elicited and manipulated by urban space have very real potential for misinterpretation due to the risk of imposing anachronistic conditions. Nevertheless, as

13 Von Stackelberg (2009) 53. 14 Scott (2013) 1. 15 Larmour and Spencer (2007) 4.

[10] pointed out by Masseglia; a disinclination to engage with the ancient mind because it cannot be completely reconstructed is 'defeatism bordering on the solipsistic'.16

In order to experience the space of the horti in Rome more fully, we must examine the relationships between the viewer and the viewed, identity and space, and Roman attitudes towards space. The individual not only inhabits space, but also shapes the space around itself. Despite this, critical approaches have often relegated the somatic effect of any particular space to a secondary position, instead focussing upon the intellectual comprehension of the space.17 Such downplay of corporeality would be especially restrictive in our current study of gardens, since these spaces were deliberately produced with intentions of providing synaesthetic experiences. One new approach has been that of cognitive theory; a much more versatile perspective which accepts a fluid perception of space. In this approach, the important signifiers lie in perceptual, not just physical, differences; mental models of a given space override material and geophysical characteristics.18 Almost all of these new approaches described above have begun to refocus the study of space from that of a passive medium to a wider, lived experience, and various theories of art have moved away from the purely aesthetic, placing emphasis instead upon art and architecture as a form of instrumental action; investigating art to do with 'doing'. Such a view is implicit in the reflexive relationship between space and social processes mentioned above, and will be explored further.

16 Masseglia (2012) 138. 17 Lefebvre (1991) 194-207. 18 Von Stackelberg (2009) 51.

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A Study of Agency

It is to theories of art, architecture, and space to do with 'doing' that we shall now turn. This type of 'doing' has been theorised as 'agency', a process in which material entities motivate inferences, affective responses and intellectual constructions in a viewer; essentially affecting them in some way. Agency theory can profitably be applied to an entire constructed space, as well as the distinct units comprising such a space. Agency may be defined as 'attributable to those persons (and things, see below) who/which are seen as initiating causal sequences'.19 Early work on agency was couched in terms of intentionality, and is still notoriously indeterminate.20 Indeed, some authorities still concentrate mainly upon intentionality, meaning that constructed space and the material artefacts that constitute an urban environment are simply traces of human agency and any agency they may possess is a passive form of the creators'.21 However, this approach may be criticised for a partiality towards an anthropocentric view. There is an opposing argument which has gathered momentum; one which allows the attribution of agency to material objects. One result of this line of thinking is the view of material culture as actively constructing the world within which people act and affecting individual's subjectivities,22 and this is the mode of thought utilised in this paper. In this approach, the concept of intentionality was overtaken with agency amounting to 'the power to act'.23

Gell is one of the scholars of the opinion that causal sequences initiated by agents come into being through intentionality. If the initiator (human individual beginning the sequence) does not come into contact with a recipient (the individual being affected by the sequence), then the initiator's agency must be mediated by physical objects. In Gell's definition of agency, material objects (including space itself) cannot be agents in themselves, but act merely as extensions of another's agency. However, Gell differentiates between 'primary agents' (intentional beings) and 'secondary agents', through which primary agents distribute agency. He emphasises that 'secondary' does not mean that such

19 Gell (1998) 16. (authors' parenthesis) 20 Hodder (2000) 22. 21 Cf. Gell (1998). 22 Dobres & Robb (2000) 12. 23 Cf. Shanks & Tilley (1987).

[12] objects are not agents; merely a different type of agent.24 Although they may not possess intentional agency, they have that effect by virtue of being embedded within social relationships and processes. Whilst it may seem that this theory is a comfortable middle ground between the two lines of thought, the problem created is that the primary focus is still placed upon the intentionality of the initiator. Thus any causal sequence, deductions and inferences caused by the material object that correlate with the presumed intention of the initiator will be privileged over any other incidental inferences and potential meanings created by the same object. This may lead to inductive and speculative error.

The Mutability of Meaning

Scholars have called for archaeologists to 'refute the claim that the material could ever have had a single meaning, or that a privileged meaning resides in the moment of its origin'.25 There is a need to acknowledge in the study of Roman space that variables can change the effectiveness of visual communication; one material object or space may send different messages to a range of possible viewers.26 Lefebvre comments that 'a monumental work... does not have a signified [meaning]; rather, it has a horizon of meaning: a specific or indefinite multiplicity of meanings, a shifting hierarchy in which now one, now another, meaning comes momentarily to the fore'.27 This line of thought runs parallel to that of scholars such as Martindale, who postulate that idiosyncratic cultural, social and political presuppositions are integral to each act of interpretation. Indeed 'meaning... is always realised at the point of reception,'28 and is therefore an unstable phenomenon, dynamically shifting due to the angle of vision of spectator and the passing of time. Jas Elsner also comments extensively upon what he terms 'visuality'; the 'pattern of cultural constructs and social discourse that stand between the retina and the world, a screen through which the subjects of this inquiry... had no choice but to look, and through which they acquired... their

24 Gell (1998) 20. 25 Barret (2000) 67. 26 Clarke (2003) 9. 27 Lefebvre (1991) 222. 28 Martindale (1993) 3.

[13] sense of subjectivity'.29 Firstly, we must allow for a potential disjunct between the ancient Roman internal 'screen' and our own modern one. Second, ancient Romans possessed a remarkable range of visualities that they were able to apply to the objects of their gaze, potentially due to greater variations in class and education, and a lack of homogenising mass media.30 Thus we must be aware of the multiplicity of possible interpretations of constructed spaces and the material objects within them. Additionally, since analyses of urban experience and conceptual reactions to the constructed spaces of ancient Rome are based on fragmentary information they must be considered provisional and any conclusions drawn should be left open for re-examination.31

Such mutability of meaning is often referred to in studies of gardens, since some scholars stress the individual nature of any response to a garden; an 'immediate reaction to the flow of perception... carefully selected for its power to evoke a mood'.32 Any emotion experienced is also influenced by the associations brought by the viewer to their experience, as previously discussed. Kuttner uses a suggestive approach in her study of movement in an imperial water garden.33 Rather than reconstruct a single model she proposes an infinite range of possible responses, but they can be characterised by the Roman culture from which they arise. 'Experience is certainly achieved by individuals, but it arises from the embodiment of a cultural narrative by the particular person who is subjected to the experience'.34 Conan usefully likens this to the limits of meaning inherent in a single sentence. Our analysis 'cannot reach a reconstruction of individual experiences and must be satisfied with an understanding of a culturally specific domain of experience'.35

Thus, when investigating the agency of constructed environments such as gardens, instead of speculating as to the intended effect of the initiators, it is important to focus instead on the possible effects caused by these spaces both directly upon participants and also reflexively upon the initiators themselves, set within a culturally specific narrative.

29 Elsner (2007) XVII. 30 Favro (1996) 9. 31 Favro (1996) 22. 32 Conan (2003) 26. 33 Cf. Kuttner (2003). 34 Conan (2003) 27. 35 Conan (2003) 28.

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Space and Identity

Having begun to wrestle with the different approaches to the study of space and agency, we may now turn to the ways in which space is linked to identity, both individual and social. Urban spatial arrangements may be a focus for the formation of any identities. It is possible for architecture to enable the embodiment of both cultural concepts and hierarchies of accessibility in the physical space of the city. Robin and Rothschild have shown that 'it is through spatial interaction that people integrate local and personal knowledge within larger political economic processes'.36 They argue for the concept of lived space which is both socially constructed and experienced, and has a history, or memory, which is inscribed on it by the people inhabiting it through time. We need to recognise the physical landscape as a 'fundamental participant' in historical action, as both 'reflector and articulator of social values, phenomena and identities'.37

More can be understood about the relationship between space and social theory by asking certain questions. How are key social categories (community, class, race, gender or sexuality) constituted and reproduced in urban contexts throughout history? How are and were social relations shaped by urban spaces?

It is useful at this stage to turn to an example for illustration. The Roman circus, amphitheatre and theatre were particular and iconic spaces that helped to construct Roman identity, and to locate individual identity within the social matrix across the Roman world. By the time of Augustus the Circus Maximus is estimated to have had capacity for 150,000 spectators.38 The size and comparative accessibility of spaces such as this to a wide range of social groupings allowed enormous, heterogeneous in every sense, crowds to gather in a single constructed space. Accustomed as we are to such crowds of people, it is easy to forget the possible effects of such a large, varied crowd upon the subjectivities of participants in antiquity. Such a vast spectacle loudly proclaimed Rome to be truly the greatest city on earth; the noise of the crowd alone would have been remarkable, and probably the loudest sound many had ever heard. The impressive spread of Empire was

36 Robin & Rothschild (2002) 162. 37 Scott (2013) 168. 38 Humphrey (1986) 76.

[15] shown by the importation of exotic animals and people for the entertainment of Rome. In this vast constructed space every viewer, regardless of class, citizenry or origin, was enabled to become temporarily part of the Roman ideal. Repeated exposure to such impressive examples of Roman power within a spatial experience of such heroic dimensions must undeniably have had many powerful effects upon the crowd. Viewers' cultural identities would have been constantly realigned to fit within this image of power, and also relatively homogenised to increase civic pride.

However, simultaneously, the internal spatial arrangement of spaces such as the theatre and circus, constructed for pleasure, also reproduced structures of social difference and hierarchy. In terms of gender men and women actually sat side by side in the Circus Maximus; but in theatres they were strictly separated. While there is still debate about seating in the Circus Maximus, most have concluded that seating at the Circus from Augustus' time onwards was 'generally...by rank'.39At all public shows in Rome the first row of seats were reserved for senators. The equites had had fourteen rows reserved for them in the theatre since 67 BC (Lex Roscia), and had separate seats in the Circus from AD 5 (Dio. Cass. 55.22.4). It is probable that other magistrates and religious officials had separate seats also. (It is unclear whether Augustus' laws giving separate seating sections to soldiers, married men, and boys with their tutors applied to the Circus as well as to the theatre.) This visible system of grading meant that it was possible to literally visualise ones' social position within the city, and easily become familiar with the social hierarchy of Rome. Constructed public spaces such as this helped delineate and negotiate the urban frictions between community and individual. These spaces provided ways of uniting a highly varied population in recognising mutual claims to social space whilst also preserving individual notions of difference and separateness. 40 This neatly illustrates Lamour's eloquent notion that the "'I' is inseparable from and very much dependent upon, 'the eye'".41

We have established there is a firm connection between space and society. Constructed space can indeed be attributed with some form of agency, and there exists a reflexive relationship of agency between people and the spaces they create. Social space is

39 Humphrey (1986) 77. 40 Tonkiss (2005) 4. 41 Lamour & Spencer (2007) 20.

[16] tied up in a protean knot involving both the collective identity of societies, and the individual's sense of self. Thus it is clear why scholars such as Scott argue for a broader engagement between history and space. 'A spatial approach is, actually, indispensible to constructing a well-rounded, textured and credible understanding of the complexity of the ancient world.'42

Roman Notions of Space

Having justified a spatial approach, and explored a few of the ways in which we experience space, it is now important to return to Elsner's idea of 'visuality'. As already mentioned, Romans may have interacted with space in a culturally specific manner, different to ours today. This means that we must attempt to investigate Roman attitudes concerning constructed spaces, and the various traditions they held for manipulating urban spaces.

Because of low literacy rates in antiquity, many other methods were used to convey information to the broadest audience possible, including the manipulation of the urban topography.43 Because of this necessity, many Romans of all classes were skilled readers of non verbal texts. Communication through the physical form of the city was convenient, natural and necessary for Romans, since 'interwoven with histories, narratives, and propaganda, ancient buildings and urban environments provided enduring and highly visible frameworks for conveying information'.44 Favro argues that Romans had a more 'circumscribed awareness of cities than modern observers'. Pedestrian travel in Rome also forced immediate and personal interaction with the cityscape. Many citizens learnt about their city through acquiring first hand knowledge as they moved through the urban space; unlike today most streets were not named and maps were rare. A result of this was that pedestrians were forced to 'conceptualise the placement of urban features and themselves in a relational manner' based upon the location of noteworthy urban elements (Ter. Ad. 573-85). Thus 'good environmental memories were essential to navigate the convoluted

42 Scott (2013) 2. 43 Favro (1996) 6-7. 44 Favro (1996) 11.

[17] byways of larger cities, and to understand the meaning woven into the urban fabric'.45 The various monuments and constructed spaces of Rome did not stand alone. Instead, their diverse messages and inherent socio-cultural connotations were read in a cumulative matrix of information and associations, creating a complex web of relationships and meaning throughout the city. Cicero has been quoted in support of this idea, since he states that a consideration of space should not only involve the nature of the actual site itself, but also the vicinity and the whole district (Cic. Inv. 1.38). Thus it can be seen that Roman space was considered according not only to its absolute, but also to its relative qualities, which were often socially constructed.

Within the study of rhetoric, leading Romans were trained to use the mnemonic system, which ties together notions of movement, space and intellectual activity. This involved training to help the memorisation of extensive speeches necessary for the successful political life of the elite. Participants were taught to develop and visualise environments (loci) in their minds, which were filled with memorable objects (imagines). Each object or view would then correspond to a particular concept of the speech. To recall the entire speech accurately an orator would 'move' through his internally constructed space, reading and decoding the content bearing images as he encountered them.46 Quintilian's book of rhetoric describes this system, and significantly for the purpose of this paper, stresses that the urban cityscape can also form a usable mnemonic environment (Quint. Inst. 11.2.21). Such an oratorical method of composing a narrative from a cityscape or constructed space neatly demonstrates how some Romans were able to read and decode their surrounding physical environment in a manner probably very far removed from ours today. Elite Romans were trained, and therefore predisposed, to look for underlying coherent narratives in built environments.

Many scholars are interested in what has been termed 'collective/cultural memory' in relation to the cityscape, which seems to be peculiarly manifest in Rome and is essential to this study. This concept encapsulates 'the collectively shared knowledge of a society, the peculiar set of certainties and convictions it has about itself, and, in particular, about its historical roots. The collective memory helps... a society as a whole to articulate an

45 Favro (1996) 5-6. 46 Favro (1996) 7.

[18] awareness of its defining characteristics and its unity, and therefore form an essential basis for its self- image and identity'.47 Holkeskamp discusses the educational and normative function of such collective memory; this type of memory integrates members of society, reinforces society's cohesion, and provides instruction from the past as to how to act in the present and future. Whilst there is a wide possible spectrum of forms such collective memory may take, it is evident that 'memory tends towards spatiality', and nowhere more so than in ancient Rome.

A permanent landscape of memory visibly staged remembrance of important events and people to the people within Rome. A vibrant interplay was created between the stories attached to a location and their contemporary public function. Each new visual element added to the cityscape was given additional meaning by the urban context of Rome's collective memory, creating a plurality of meanings to the layers of Rome's topology. Such physical memory ensured the Roman present was never too far removed from the Roman past, creating a magnificent 'trans-generational memory'.48 Plutarch is plainly aware of this evolutionary process; 'A city is like a living thing... a united and continuous whole. This does not cease to be itself as it changes in growing older, not does it become one thing after another with the lapse of time, but is always at one with its former self in feelings and identity' (Plut. De Exilio. 559). The famous chapter in Livy's History of Rome that recounts the speech of M. Furius Camillus (5.32-55) demonstrates how Romans saw the site of Rome as a kind of 'time machine' with a phenomenological quality. After the sack of Rome by the Gauls (390/389 BC) Camillus spoke against the proposal to move to Veii. He generates a complex historicising scenography in order to show Romans that their city and its physical site are their identity; the two cannot be successfully separated.49 It is important for our purposes also to note here that the natural features of the site of Rome are just as significant as the manmade structures. Thus it might be argued that landscape, and constructed spaces, circulate as mediums of exchange, sites of visual appropriation, and foci for the formation of identity.

47 Holkeskamp (2006) 481- 482. 48 Holkeskamp (2006) 489. 49 Spencer (2010) 33.

[19]

The Building Traditions of Rome

It is partly because of the connection between identity and space that there has always been a symbiosis between the will to power and monumental display. Politics, as any social process, unfolds in space, and these spaces become objects of struggle in their own right. Whilst ostensibly merely providing a setting for political action, spaces often become politicised in contests over access, power and representation. Indeed, one of the most visible and basic methods of evidencing power is to seize or control space.50 We have already discussed the ways in which architecture makes power legible to a wide audience, and it is also true that such displays require no complicity from their users, other than their physical presence or comprehension.51 Many scholars have commented on the public display of imagery in the city of Rome, and its traditional function of honouring deserving citizens.52 This tradition indicates public understand in Rome that art, and its spatial setting, could bestow status.

For example, it is no mere coincidence that Suetonius opens his biography of Augustus by discussing historical spatial evidence for the influence and distinction of the Octavian family. (This was intended to contradict contemporary derogatory claims about the family's social standing.) In Velitrae, 'not only was a street in the most frequented part of town long ago called Octavian, but an altar was shown there besides, consecrated by an Octavius' (Suet. Aug. 1.1). Suetonius uses 'locus celeberrimus' to describe the prominent nature of the space, and the elevated rank of the family is demonstrated by their influence in such a locus celeberrimus.53 Here we have an example of space being considered by its relational qualities, as Cicero mentions, instead of as an absolute quality. Furthermore we can see how space affects not only viewers, but also reflexively affects the social identity of the individual who manipulated the space. Viewers translate the altar and street name into signs of status attributing power to the Octavian gens, but the viewers' identity is also simultaneously realigned as a member of a society in some way influenced by the Octavian family. It is interesting that Suetonius need only create a literary representation of this

50 Tonkiss (2005) 59-60. 51 Newsome (2011) 293. 52 D'Ambra (1998) 41. 53 Newsome (2011) 24.

[20] alleged space in Velitrae to reproduce the original effect of public distinction, which is recognisably and elegantly transferred to Augustus.

As the Republic drew towards its violent demise, the progressive destruction of national values and traditions assisted the development of a style of strong self- representation by individuals who wished to achieve prominence. The monuments and topology of Rome were 'both a stage for and a product of the political struggles of the Republic, reflecting the increasing levels of competition within the Roman elite and the central importance of their relationship with the Roman People for the aristocracy'.54 Repairs of older structures were few and far between; many wealthy citizens preferred to begin new projects and monuments, the messages of which would have been easier to control. Torelli suggests that such self-representation left the cityscape physically fragmented, with many competing and contradictory messages.55 However, Favro is of the opinion that the monuments counterbalanced each other, and these architectural texts were read in a collective nexus of associations by Rome's inhabitants.56

Roman Space and Movement

It is now necessary to investigate Roman movement, since horti were spaces constructed for leisured walking. Is it not true that we move through a garden in response to its design? Motion is a crucial aspect of landscape design and relative to our engagement with the world around us, so a study of movement may help us learn something about the deeper life of consciousness underlying more perceptive activities that took place in Roman horti.57 Anthropologists have posited that different types of movement are largely culturally determined.58 This notion of cultural specificity leads us to attempt to transcend the cultural disparity between Roman attitudes to movement and our own, presenting movement as a rich text through which we can understand a culture from a refreshingly new perspective. We shall see how the physical act of leisured walking became a touchstone of cultured

54 Patterson (2006) 350. 55 Torelli (2006) 96. 56 Favro (1996) 72. 57 Conan (2003) 11. 58 Mauss (1979) 97- 119.

[21] behaviour in Rome. An exploration of the origin of such a ritualised act will be indispensible, since it will illuminate inherent cultural associations embedded in the notion of the leisured walk. Finally, it is important to explore how notions of space and movement were tied together, as well as ideas concerning the spatial setting for leisured movement in Rome.

Philosophical Movement

The act of self-conscious ambulation involved in Roman leisurely walking has a clear prototype in the arena of Greek philosophy. The names of two influential Greek philosophical schools even derived their names from movement or its spatial setting; the Peripatetics and the Stoics.59 However, the reality of the reputation of Greek philosophers for ambulatory discussion is questionable; for example sources mention that Protagoras only began serious dialogue once his audience was seated (Plat. Prot. 314e). But what is important is that there existed in antiquity a pervasive belief that movement of the body reflected movement of the mind. As with other Hellenistic cultural elements, the Romans absorbed and adopted the link between walking and philosophical dialogue for their own purposes.60 Varro conceptualised intellectual activity as analogous to types of movement, likening his own to a hunt (Varr. Ling. 5.5).61 Pliny gave movement an intellectual dynamic in his letters to Fuscus Salinator, recounting walking during a typical day. Pliny's regular walks were not only for his health, but also to dictate to his slave or pursue conversation (Plin. Ep. 9.36).62 A friend of Pliny's, T. Vestricius Spurinna, is described as walking three miles a day, exercising his mind no less than his body (Plin. Ep. 3.1.4). The plethora of Roman sources that link movement with intellectual activity demonstrate that this connection was firmly entrenched within popular imagination of the upper class. Leisured walking with strong philosophical overtones had become an important element in the pursuit of an elite lifestyle.

59 O'Sullivan (2011) 3. 60 O'Sullivan (2011) 93. 61 Spencer (2011) 69. 62 Macaulay-Lewis (2007) 52.

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The philosophical overtones of leisured movement often directed the accompanying discourse, creating a connective interplay between action and speech. Idealised philosophical rhetoric was often employed, encouraging contemplation and reflection on the self and one's role in community.63 Although philosophy was not considered a cornerstone of elite education (unlike rhetoric for example), a grounding in philosophy could serve to form an identity in line with aristocratic ideals. Philosophical lectures regularly covered topics such as emotional self control, which was considered crucial to elite self- definition.64 Roman enthusiasm for leisured walking was not only a tribute to the erudite lifestyle of Greek philosophers, but also an act of self definition as a member of the elite.

Roman Movement

Philosophy was a cultural ritual of leisure (rather than education) that only the elite could afford to engage in. It has been suggested that the desire to be linked with philosophy lay in the social and political dividends that 'might attach to such a sheen of philosophy'.65 Undertaking an ambulatio in public could be described as a performance of elite identity for two reasons, firstly because of its links with philosophy. Secondly, such ambulatio flaunted the walkers' economic independence, since it visibly announced he did not need to use his body to earn a wage.66 Strategies of hierarchy can therefore be articulated even in the social network of movement.67 Anthropologists interested in movement have generally defined it in terms of culturally distinctive gestures. Bourdieu, a French sociologist, established the concept of habitus; namely that every socio- economic group may be characterised by a particular set of external characteristics. One function of habitus is that political ideologies particular to any given group are 'embodied, turned into a permanent disposition, a durable way of standing, speaking, walking, and thereby of feeling and thinking'.68 A concept such as

63 Spencer (2011) 66. 64 Hahn (2011) 123. 65 Hahn (2011) 66. 66 O'Sullivan (2011) 9. 67 Newsome (2011) 3. 68 Bourdieu (1990) 69-70.

[23] this can be usefully applied to the Roman world, where we have already seen that the appearance of one’s physical deportment facilitated displays of economic and social status.

The word most commonly used in invective texts to describe a persons' gait is incessus.69 This has posed a translation challenge for scholars, since it is frequently used where we might not expect it in English. Translators have used 'bearing' or 'demeanour', neither of which are even listed in The Oxford Latin Dictionary, in attempts to convey the use of incessus as a synecdoche for physical self presentation despite the limitations of the English word 'gait'. Scholars have shown that the difference is not just semantic but also cultural.70 It is rare in Western cultures today to infer social status from how someone walks, but Roman audiences translated movement into comprehensible categories of class. If we turn to Roman comedy we see the implicit expectation for an audience to recognise a correlation between movement and character. The dominant class moved slowly and calmly, whereas attendants and workers were identified by stereotypically hasty movements; so much so that the concept of the servus currens became a humorous motif in many plays.71 Indeed, the notion was so familiar that Plautus was able to parody it by causing a group of freedmen to adopt an exasperatingly exaggerated slow pace of an aristocrat. 'A sober pace in the city streets is the suitable thing for free men; it has a servile look to bustle about on the run' (Pl. Poen. 522-3).72

In turning to other types of literature, it can be seen that the ambulatio had evolved from its intellectual and philosophical roots into a profoundly social activity. Martial’s disgusted description of Selius frantically scurrying through the porticoed spaces of the Campus Martius to seek out dinner invitations is a good example of what an educated Roman considered the 'wrong' way to walk (Mart.2.11-14). Additionally, this example shows that Roman elite sought out these spaces in order to undertake leisurely walks and to meet friends and plan other social activities.73 Ambulatio provided a setting for conversation amongst equals, and the act of choosing to carry out a leisurely walk in another's company became a virtual symbol of friendship. In a letter to an old friend expressing his wish to be

69 Corbeill (2004) 118. 70 O'Sullivan (2011) 12-13. 71 Corbeill (2004) 17. 72 O'Sullivan (2011) 18. 73 Macaulay-Lewis (2007) 60.

[24] reunited Cicero tells of how he would like to discuss his many anxieties in the conversation of a single walk (Cic. Arr. 1.18.1). Cicero clearly imagines the pair not only talking but also walking, supporting the theory that the public performance of ambulatio could have been translated as a show of trust, friendship or political association.74 It must also be noted at this point that the 'correct' way of walking was at least partially dictated by the toga, the customary woollen dress of the elite. This was a cumbersome garment held in place not with a clasp but by its own weight, requiring one arm to be constantly held at the side of the body and thereby seriously restricting speed and form of movement.75 The effective non verbal form of representation created by such cultural translation of movement was a powerful visual method of maintaining social hierarchy, especially since it inscribed such hierarchy into the body itself. The privileged Roman used notions of the body and movement to simultaneously create and reinforce social distinction.76

Movement, the Gaze and Space

We have previously discussed the mnemonic system which coupled together ideas of movement, space and intellectual activity. Time and memory were materialised in 'memory theatres', architectural spaces that actively promoted and controlled specific memories and ideas stimulated by the interdependent relationship between architecture and memory. The art of mnemotechnics promoted by Simonides as early as the sixth century BC emphasised movement through architecture as a blueprint for actively storing, structuring, and retrieving memories (Cic. de Orat. 2.86). 'Public spaces... were not rigid monuments of nostalgia, but dynamic expressions of memory as shared social communication through movement and speech'.77

Most anthropologists have studied movement only as isolated gesture, largely divorced from its spatial context.78 This type of study will give only partial access to culturally constructed movement in Rome, since movement was intrinsically related to

74 O'Sullivan (2011) 6. 75 O'Sullivan (2011) 19. 76 Corbeill (2004) 113. 77 Von Stackelberg (2009) 64. 78 Macaulay-Lewis (2007) 19.

[25] space in Roman culture. There exists a conceptual link between the two even in the Latin language. Spatior is translated as 'to walk about, especially in a...leisurely manner', with a secondary meaning of 'to spread out or be extended'.79 The related noun is spatium, meaning space. This connection can also be found in many extant literary sources. For example, Varro, a polymath of the late Republic, explores the relationship between time, space and movement. He ties motion, space and body together stating that 'where it [the body] is in motion, is place' (Var.Ling.5.11).80

Adoption of Greek traditions such as the philosophical debate was part of the acculturation of Hellenistic concepts into Roman aristocratic culture that reached its zenith in the second century BC. It is no coincidence that during this period Pompeian houses began to incorporate peristyles; gardens surrounded by porticos on one or more sides.81 This architectural form owed much to the Greek gymnasia, associated as much with philosophical debate as health. Cicero states that settings such as these porticoed gardens were considered especially appropriate for philosophical conversation. Imagining a conversation on eloquence amongst leading statesmen of the early first century BC, Catullus draws attention to their location; the portico of Crassus' Tuscan villa. 'Do you really think this scene ill fitting [for discussion], where this very colonnade, in which we are now walking, this exercise ground... in some degree awaken memories of the gymnastic schools and discussions of the Greeks?' (Cic. De Orat.2.4.20). It is clear that certain topographical features were deliberately designed with the purpose of reminding visitors of the spaces associated with Greek philosophy, and consciously intended as settings for intellectual activity.82 Cicero's phrasing suggests that both the architectural space and decor of the portico garden encouraged movement of both body and mind, and allusions to Greek gymnasia set their minds in reflective motion, in a way similar to the mnemonic system. Although no contemporary Greek descriptions of the Academy survive, Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Philosophers, written in the second century AD, suggests that trees and walks had become fundamental parts of the landscapes of the academy and Athen's other

79 Oxford Latin Dictionary (1798) s.v.spatior. 80 Spencer (2011) 57-64. 81 O'Sullivan (2011) 93. 82 O'Sullivan (2011) 78.

[26] philosophical schools.83 Plato can be found perched in trees (3.7), matters were disputed whilst walking on paths (2.130), and Aristotle strolled in the tree lined walks of the Lyceum (5.2).

Some have argued that a mobile gaze was identified with active thought in the ancient world. Corbeil, using the epic cycle and evidence of Claudius Donatus, suggests eye movement was known to reflect thought (Don. 7.251). He states 'to have a fixed gaze means to express resolve' and 'it would be against nature for the eye to remain fixed when the mind is in a state of activity'.84 Gaze is connected with intellectual endeavour, alongside movement. As a person moves through space, so too does their gaze, and discussion follows; reflecting upon the sights and contours of the surrounding space. It is often found in philosophical debate that participants would encounter an object or vista which then inspired and directed conversation (Cic. De Orat. 1.28).85

Leisurely movement and the accompanying conversation had a specific spatial context in the public areas of Rome; porticos, portico-temples and public gardens. Such outdoor spaces have long been undervalued by an historically site-/structure-centric type of archaeology.86 These open spaces were essential to Roman architecture; it is significant that Vitruvius opens his discourse of public buildings with not a 'building' in the traditional sense of the word, but a colonnaded open space (Vitr. 5.1.12).87 The advent of spaces such as the monumental portico and public gardens, specifically designed to accommodate leisured movement, testifies to the particular cultural specificity of Roman leisured walking, and its importance as an elite pursuit.88 We have established the tradition of leisured walking retained qualities of the philosophical ambulation from which it was derived. Physical and intellectual movement were joined in a mutual relationship, adding more cultural significance to the act of leisured walking. The quality of philosophical learnedness conferred elite status upon the walker, as did the public display of economic independence shown through the use of the body for leisure. The incessus was used to demonstrate status and maintain social boundaries, with 'correct' ways of movement culturally determined and

83 Macaulay-Lewis (2013) 101. 84 Corbeill (2004) 146. 85 O'Sullivan (2011) 89. 86 Robin & Rothschild (2002) 159. 87 Anderson (1997) 247. 88 Macaulay-Lewis (2007) 71.

[27] approved. The act of leisured walking was embedded into a process of elite self-definition, furthered by philosophical debate concerning identity and the state. We have seen how the spatial context within which leisured walking took place had a role in directing movement of both body and mind. Space and the physical environment are dynamic forces with the ability to act upon society and individuals. This is an influence of no small importance considering the significance of leisured walking in elite self definition. Thus it is important to analyse the horti of Rome as public spaces for leisured walking, in an attempt to understand how participants may have been influenced during these reflective moments.

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Chapter II: Gardens

From the time of the late Republic, Rome was surrounded by the vast gardens of the elite. In addition a multiplicity of other types of gardens existed within the city. These ranged from the gardens surrounding bathhouses, gardened walkways, temple groves, courtyard gardens of houses, to the humble window box. A large percentage of the inhabitants of Rome had access to gardens of various kinds. Many had their own gardens, especially after the implementation of the Augustan urban water programme of c.30 BC onwards which aided irrigation.89 In any investigation of Roman public horti, we must be aware that 'gardens mean something quite different in every culture, and garden art has very different associations for different societies'.90 In this chapter we shall explore several attitudes and traditions that form the backdrop to the complicated relationships between gardens, architecture and identity in Rome in the first century BC and onwards. We shall see that garden spaces were intellectually rarefied, highly allusive creations, 'dominated by complex traditions and consciously linked with important philosophical questions of how man should behave and what is his relationship with the natural setting in which he finds himself'.91 After discussing some of the methodological approaches to garden space I shall proceed to address the definition of a garden space, and lastly Roman notions of the garden.

89 Jones (2014) 782. 90 Purcell (1987) 187. 91 Purcell (1987) 187.

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Introduction

The historiography of Roman garden spaces is hardly encouraging. Few scholars have examined gardens in terms of the conceptual rules governing their production, space theory or human geography. Until recently 'even in studies of the Roman house the garden is usually represented as a blank lacuna of undifferentiated space'.92 However, the more we study horti romani, the less faith can be placed in generalisation and typologies. Scholars such as Wallace- Hadrill have begun to look at the specific historical transformation of a long tradition of land utilisation. He, in a similar investigation to this paper, examines the 'socio- cultural context of a specific model of hortus that emerged in the late Republic and early Empire', and looks at the impact this new model had on social strata below that of the elite.93 Recent scholarship has begun to emphasise the role of gardens as vehicles of cultural communication, stressing that 'deep in what the Romans thought about themselves we find intensive horticulture and the plots on which it took place'.94

The investigation of horti romani is one fraught with difficulty. The material remains generally present only a fragmentary and often even unintelligible story. There are no surviving treatises about ancient garden design, and few plans can be connected with actual garden sites.95 Certain archaeological techniques (geophysical surveying, aerial photography etc.) aid in mapping plantings and landscaping, but to interpret the resulting stratigraphy and to explore further how and why particular landscapes were of significance, we need to turn to surviving texts. Literary, material and visual texts all help us recreate Roman understanding of horti.96 It has been established by Littlewood that in the study of horti 'in general the type of information provided by literature, at least up to the mid-second century AD is reliable, exaggeration being restrained and fantasy eschewed'.97 There survives a large body of literature in which real and imaginary gardens appear in a variety of contexts. These gardens offer themselves for study which can explore not only the ways in which Romans

92 Von Stackelberg (2009) 3. 93 Wallace-Hadrill (1995) 1. 94 Purcell (1996) 122. 95 Macaulay-Lewis (2013) 99. 96 Spencer (2010) 3. 97 Littlewood (1987) 9.

[30] thought about the functions and meanings of gardens, but also how Romans used gardens to reflect upon and define themselves socially, aesthetically and politically.98

Definition

Reaching a definition of 'garden' is difficult, since the garden as a material object demonstrates an erratic complexity. Notions about gardens are extremely diverse, and a garden is not defined by its form, scale, content or location. Latin scholars have been keen to fix exactly what was meant by the word hortus. Typically hortus has been translated as a singular garden, whereas horti is usually taken to refer to a large estate or pleasure garden. This impulse to define the semantics has blinded many to the subtle ways in which the term 'garden' operates, even today. The word encompasses a wide range of garden art, landscape elements, architecture, and different uses. If we consider the modern example of London's Kensington Gardens, we find the space is simultaneously a public park, a royal estate, a collection of diverse separate gardens and now also a purposefully constructed green space within a busy city. Horti, or gardens, suggest 'an expansive and multi-use landscape, populated with decorative, utilitarian, and ideological aspects and sites... also tends to imply narrative or metaphorical complexity'.99 It is not within the range of this paper to differentiate between the many types of garden and their individual roles in Roman identity, so we shall be mainly dealing with the private pleasure parks made public at the end of the Republic and onwards, although undoubtedly there will be encounters with other types of gardens along the way.

Von Stackelberg has postulated four precepts for defining gardens; 'a garden is a cultivated space; it is distinguished from the surrounding landscape either by enclosure or another visual indication of spatial transition; it is continuous to or in the vicinity of a man- made structure; it bears a symbolic value in addition to its productive value'.100 The garden can mediate between ideals associated with rural nature and urban civilization.

98 Cf. Beard (1995). 99 Spencer (2010) 140. 100 Von Stackelberg (2009) 6-7.

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Fundamental to this mediatory role is the fact that its’ boundary is porous.101 When recreating Roman attitudes to gardens we must avoid utilising the diverse grouping of ideas, traditions and cultural assumptions that notions of gardens and landscape entail today. Modern notions of the garden have been coloured by movements such as Romanticisms' fascination with the un-knowability and sublime power of nature.102 We should try to put these notions aside and approach Roman attitudes to gardens with an open perspective.

Many scholars have commented that the Roman garden was as much a conceptual space as a physical space.103 Von Stackelberg uses Pliny the Elder as evidence for this; 'The lower classes of Rome, with their mimic gardens in their windows, day after day presented the reflex of the country to the eye' (Plin. Nat. 19.19). The Latin phrase 'imago hortorum' is used, a usual translation of which reads as referring to window boxes. The use of 'imago' to describe the simple and prosaic window box shows that such an image was a resonant concept in Roman society, conveying not only a visual image but also cultural information. 'A garden was not just a place, it was an idea of a place, experienced on both a societal and an individual level.'104 Jones, who sets the Roman garden in the context of identity, imagination and cognitive development, also comments upon the same phenomenon. He states how the person experiencing one garden sees it through other gardens, real, historical or poetic. It is a 'place for thinking about literature, history and identity'.105 The Roman imagination uses the garden as a medium through which something other than mere literal reality is seen. This makes gardens a fostering environment for 'role-play and self- impersonation (therefore also contributing to the expression of identity)'.106 It may come as a surprise to us today when the sense of self and the idea of a garden seem at great variance to each other, but 'they have been tightly bound at completely different historical times'. 'Beyond the playfulness of dramatic experiences of gardens and landscapes, there appeared a much deeper role for gardens in self-development' in Roman culture.107 Even a cursory familiarity with Latin literature and Roman art can easily discover a frequently expressed strong emotional investment in the representation of gardens. Despite an

101 Jones (2014) 803. 102 Spencer (2010) 2-3. 103 Jones (2014), Von Stackelberg (2009). 104 Von Stackelberg (2009) 1-2. 105 Jones (2014) 781. 106 Jones (2014) 783. 107 Conan (2003) 20-21.

[32] impressive urban cityscape Roman society considered itself, at heart, an agricultural society. Certainly, 'gardens were as much an expression of aesthetic and cultural ideals as a practical amenity'.108 It is necessary in this exploration of Roman horti to trace their role as vehicles of cultural communication.

The History of the Roman Garden

The Roman garden was not a tabula rasa but part of a long gardening tradition, involving notions of sacred space, royal power, civic pride and philosophical engagement, antecedents of which can be found in Egypt, Asia Minor and the Aegean. It is possible to read Roman 'landscape as a site of memory, giving access to priscae virtutes, ancient and fundamental qualities of the ideal Roman',109 but in order to do so we need to investigate some of the historical associations, cultural connotations and inherent values of the Roman garden.

The earliest appearance of the 'hortus' in literature is concerned with both property and identity. Pliny the Elder discusses the twelve tables of the fifth century BC codifying traditional customs into statutory law. Pliny establishes a conceptual relation between the hortus and the heredium by highlighting that which Romans would term as a hortus was termed as a heredium by their ancestors. 'In our laws of the Twelve Tables, we find the word 'farm' (villa) is never named, instead the word 'garden' (hortus) is always used with that signification, while the term 'heredium' we find employed for 'garden'' (Plin. Nat. 19.19). This connection begins to demonstrate the spatial importance of the hortus, since the heredium was the original Roman garden space, considered to be both productive and civic. Varro tells us that the heredium was made up of two acres (as much land one man can plough in a single day), with great symbolic value since it corresponded to the original land grant assigned by Romulus to each Roman citizen (Varr. RR. 1.10). This fixed portion of land also symbolised continuity between one generation and the next, since it was an inalienable portion of an estate that could not be bequeathed outside the family. Thus 'as a conceptual

108 Von Stackelberg (2009) 4. 109 Spencer (2010) 13.

[33] space, the hortus shared these associations with citizenship, identity, and legitimacy represented by the heredium'.110 Von Stackelberg suggests a reason for the replacement of heredium with hortus in common usage. Hortus' most closely related noun is 'cohors', translated as both an enclosure and as a group of men banded together for a common purpose. Both words share root concepts of grouping together, cultivation and commonality. The subsequent identification of the hortus as villa or garden establishes it 'as a pivotal space in a continuing process in which land ownership and social status were mutually interdependent'.111

From the mid second century BC the villa became the focus of social display between aristocratic Romans and an inspirational ideal for the non-elite. Many leading men of the late Republic transformed their estates around the city from agricultural-type villas to monumental private villa suburbanae.112 The source of inspiration for this transformation has been attributed to the Hellenistic East, which in turn drew on the Oriental models of the paradeisos.113 These horti were heavily decorated with sculpture and were foci of leisure and competitive display. While the traditional, agricultural and productive aspect of the villas’ hortus was not wholly abandoned, a majority of the garden was directed towards luxury items (Hor. Carm. 2.15.1-10). Although an encyclopaedist who focussed on the minutiae of garden content, Pliny the Elder's interest in the cultural value of the hortus shows a conceptual evolution of the hortus from 'a simple space of rural production to a complex space of social meaning'.114 The view of Roman moralists about such luxurious private pleasure spaces as symptomatic of the escalation of luxury in Rome is well known. Pliny states that people owned property for frivolous reasons, with even meadows and villas in the city (Nat. 19.50).115 Gardens such as those of Lucullus and Sallust were ostentatious spaces designed for self display. The richest leading citizens created a green belt upon the hills on the outer edges of the city centre, stretching from the Aventine, Esquiline, and Pincian to the Campus Martius, right up to the Tiber. On the one hand these estates were unambiguously private. Boundary stones inscribed 'privatum (sc. iter)' discovered in the

110 Von Stackelberg (2009) 9-10. 111 Von Stackelberg (2009) 10-11. 112 Macaulay-Lewis (2013) 102. 113 Wallace- Hadrill (1995) 1-2. 114 Von Stackelberg (2009) 12. 115 Boatwright (1995) 72.

[34] horti lolliani and other gardens are explicit (CIL VI 32184-5) and horti are routinely associated with the more conspicuous forms of luxurious private leisure; boat parties, elaborate dinners and days of amorous dalliance (Cic. Cael. 36). On the other hand, their proximity to the city ensured these horti were highly visible, perfect for ostentatious self- display. 116 Some have suggested that the earliest known horti are linked to powerful individuals who had withdrawn from active political life.117 Lucullus retired after triumphing over Mithridates in 63 BC and after Sallust was driven from public life in 45 BC he spent much wealth elaborating his properties on the Quirinal. 'The two earliest horti that figure in historiography seem to me to connote perversity, even perversion, they are made emblematic of a man's diversion from politics and the military, the proper aim of Roman mans' life'.118

Some horti of the late Republic were less infamous because they were quickly turned over to the public good. Here Cicero's dictum is relevant; among the Romans, extravagance for private pleasure was loathed, magnificence for public good received approbation (Cic. Mur. 76). Plutarch uses Cimon, the 5th century BC Athenian general and statesmen, as a model for this. He praises the use of Cimon's farm as an amenity to be shared with the public (Plut. Vit. Cim. 10.1-2, 10.6). People were allowed to take fruits and his urban residence was open to Athenians. This transformed Cimons' farm into a political tool, since dinners given there for citizens earned him gratitude and political support and, importantly, blurred the line between private and public spheres. The opening of his gardens and fields, as well as the sharing of his crops, marked Cimon as a man of the people (Plut. Vit. Cim. 10.7). Because of this he could not be accused of enjoying private luxury whilst others suffered.119 Both Julius Caesar and Pompey (and subsequently Augustus), as we shall see, used their horti to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle but also to provide for public activities in keeping with the Repubican tradition of using private resources for the public good. 'Through their blurring of public and private and their gradual politicisation, the horti continued the tradition that began with Cimon's farm.'120

116 D'Arms (1995) 34. 117 cf Wallace-Hadrill (1995) 118 Boatwright (1995) 73. 119 Macaulay- Lewis (2013) 100-101. 120 Macaulay -Lewis (2013) 105.

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The moral anxieties associated with luxury estates and their impact on traditional morals both feed into and upon a stereotype already mentioned; Roman self- fashioning as a community of farmer-citizens whose identity was rooted in working the land (be it true or not). Sallust shows how this self-fashioning related to cultural fracture in the first century BC; imperial expansion from the mid-Republic onwards had increased luxuria in Rome, contributing to the Romans losing touch with the countryside (or so more conservative communis opinio suggested). Sallust speaks with reactionary nostalgia about the recent Catilinarian Conspiracy, making a call to arms for the governing class facing radical political and cultural change.121 This diminished relationship with the land, however real it may have been, 'threatened the autochthonic qualities of Rome's historical imagination and impaired access to a collective historical memory'.122

We can begin to see here how the creation of public parks for leisure may have provided a satisfying resolution for such impaired access to the collective memory of Rome, whilst also returning to older traditions and customs. To summarise, connotations of the hortus had evolved from a domestic space for growing food into a 'multivalent space indicating rural kitchen gardens, urban gardens, and aristocratic estates. The hortus could be an elite space, but it was also associated with commonality. It could be used as a secluded place of privacy and contemplation, or a space of social competition.'123 Having discussed the development of the horti, both physical and conceptual, we should now turn to the ideological notions that were embedded within the concept of the horti for a Roman. A close study of these associations shows that Roman garden spaces were extremely complex, with internal paradoxes of meaning.

The Garden as Liminal Space

The garden occupied a unique position in Roman conceptual space. In the first chapter we discussed notions of how constructed space is a product of the society that identifies, defines, divides, and segregates it. Consequentially, these spaces are positioned against the

121 Spencer (2010) 13. 122 Spencer (2010) 13. 123 Von Stackelberg (2009) 15.

[36] utopias and dystopias occupying the collective imagination of that society. Foucault was interested in the 'heterotopian' quality of gardens; 'the garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world'.124 Within a Foucaultian framework the garden is one of the earliest kinds of 'other' space, a place that shares a mythic dimension, that embodies contradictory or culturally troubling sites, and provides space for exploring these difficulties safely.125 We have seen how the vision of one garden opened the imagination to many others, including those of a mythic dimension; the Elysian Fields, the gardens of the Hesperides, Homers' Garden of Alcinous, etc. The architectural and decorative elements of gardens also often referenced classical myths, and allusions to questions concerning human or divine action, and identity. The garden also negotiated the 'cultural fault line' between rus and urbs, and as such it was an interestingly liminal space.126 Perhaps because of this, gardens became heterotopias of deviation, encouraging encounters that diverged from the social norm. Often in literature we find horti used as the setting for illicit sexual meetings, witchcraft and unusual social mixing (Pl. As. 742/Hor. Sat. 8/Pl. Truc. 303).127 These liminal spaces were used as landscapes of allusion, and gardens were designed to evoke a certain set of shared responses and memories. This allows us to see the Roman garden as a teaching medium 'one that clarified individual and collective social roles and relationships'.128 As Romans performed the culturally specific activity of the leisured walk around such gardens, their conversation (often philosophical, as previously established) was stimulated by the design of the garden and its contents. The mythical allusions of the garden pull dialogue towards traditional virtues and the Roman identity. The liminal nature of the garden creates a space pregnant with potential for self-expression and construction of historical and personal memory.

124 Foucault (1986) 26. 125 Spencer (2010) 139. 126 Von Stackelberg (2009) 50. 127 Von Stackelberg (2009) 52. 128 Von Stackelberg (2009) 65.

[37]

Memory and Time

As previously discussed, in Rome memory had a tangible place in the cityscape. The physicality of memory created an interesting interplay with time, and the present was never too far removed from the past. Von Stackelberg comments that heterotopic space is also a function of time since 'temporal as well as physical mutability is required to accommodate the safe transition between states of deviation and crisis'.129 Gardens, in their continual state of deconstruction and reconstruction, have an remarkable relationship to both time and memory. Gardens can be connected to memory through mourning; many elite tombs had small gardens. The connection is also apparent in literature; Cicero expressed determination to immortalise his daughter in a park setting (Cic. Att. 12.18.1). Although Cicero never found a suitable location for this, the connection between mourning and retreat into gardens is attested elsewhere (Plin. Ep. 4.2.5). 'Cicero's association of landscaped gardens with nostalgia and loss thus fits into a recognisably Roman scheme whereby memory, memorialisation, and history are enshrined in a quasi- natural scenography'.130

The constantly evolving garden visibly reflected the changing seasons. Ancient cultures often used the natural environment to create a structure for understanding how time passes to give meaning and order to the passage of the year. Indeed, for agricultural communities it was a matter of life and death to understand this.131 Garden space gains meaning as a network of time, space and narratives. For example the regimented vineyard encourages a linear gaze or movement along its lines, and invites viewers to imagine the seasonal ripening of grapes and their eventual harvest. A river leads viewers to imagine the entirety of its course from mountain to sea. Indeed, 'Gardens are effective monuments because their seasonality makes them future orientated spaces. A garden is the sensory sum of what was there before (maturity in gardens is the hallmark of beauty), its present incarnation, and what is to come in a future season. They are spaces that bridge the past with the present and the future.'132 As such, public horti in Rome would have played a large

129 Von Stackelberg (2009) 62. 130 Spencer (2010) 64. 131 Spencer (2010) 47. 132 Von Stackelberg (2009) 63.

[38] part in the creation of social and collective memory of Roman identity. Romans could go to these horti to mourn a personal loss. Yet simultaneously they would be reminded in a cathartic fashion by both the garden itself and the complex decorative programs alluding to heroes of the past that death is a part of Roman life and time will continue to move forward. The adulation of civic heroes through sculpture encourages visitors to attempt to emulate those figures in their own lives, and causes them to consider what they in turn will be remembered for.

The Gardens' Sacred Aura

Many scholars have commented on the sacred aura of Roman gardens, following not least this quote of Pliny; 'There are certain religious impressions too, that have been attached to this species of property [the garden]' (Plin. Nat. 19.19). Venus was the goddess of gardens and fertility and so naturally horti were considered her realm. Schilling suggests that since the First Punic War (262- 241 BC.) the importance of Venus as a national deity had escalated. Romans considered Venus to be their privileged representative and as the mother of Aeneas she had played a large role in the founding of Rome.133 Thus a flourishing public garden in Rome can be seen to have the protection and approval of Venus herself. Modern English derives both of the words 'cult' and 'cultivate' from 'colere', a Latin verb meaning either 'to worship' or 'to cultivate'. The survival of this double meaning demonstrates the enduring association between gardens and sacred spaces. (Roman awareness of this connection can be found in the description of the divine nature of the earth by Pliny (Plin. Nat. 18.21).)134 We must remember that whilst modern notions of religious awe, prefigured by Romanticism, are associated with the grandeur of wilderness, Romans experienced it instead as a response to a cultivated landscape. Rome contained sacred groves which included shrines and grottoes, and temple precincts often contained trees and green spaces.135 The principle function of sculpture in horti was to set an associative mood for the garden and statues of deities helped the imaginative identification

133 Schilling (1954) 241. 134 Von Stackelberg (2009) 86. 135 Bowe (2004) 107.

[39] of gardens with sacred precincts. Representations of Priapus, fertility god and protector of the horti against thieves, Diana, goddess of the wild, figures of the Muses and Apollo were often found in the public gardens of Rome. Thus when Romans walked in public horti these sacred associations must have been generated within their minds.136

Philosophy in the Garden

The connection of Roman horti to the gardens of the Greeks and the legendary gardens even further East, such as those of the Hesperides, of Adonis and of Alcinous, ensured horti were seen as a suitable setting for philosophy.137 We have already discussed the suitability of garden spaces for Roman leisured walking and the philosophical conversation this regularly stimulated. Scholars have often commented upon the Roman notion of the Epicurean connotations of the garden. Indeed, Wallace- Hadrill would go so far as to state that the 'hortus indicated the school of Epicurus as precisely as the stoa indicated that of Zeno'.138 Pliny the Elder makes Epicurus' landscaped outdoor setting for philosophical study the inspiration for the luxury estates of Republican Rome's wealthy (Plin. Nat. 19. 50-1). This association of philosophy with withdrawal to a quasi-natural site of intellectual cultivation gained momentum. If we turn to the works of Cicero, we can see that all across his literary work elegant country settings provide an ideal backdrop for discussion of important political and philosophical topics. Indeed, Cicero even comments on the natural fodder for the spirit and intellect in the study and contemplation of nature (Cic. Acad. 2.157).139 Cicero used the conceptual garden space that lay behind the visible material ones as building blocks for his own identity. His Tusculan garden contained Greek works of art and even a statue of Plato (Cic. Att. 1.4, 1.6; 1.8-11). This philosophical decor recalled the garden of Epicurus, and Cicero's literary construction of his own movement through the space of Athen's famous garden (Cic. Fin. 5.1.1) also leads viewers to the groves of the Academy. All of these

136 Von Stackelberg (2009) 27. 137 Boatwright (1995) 73. 138 Wallace-Hadrill (1995) 5. 139 Spencer (2010) 18.

[40] elements of Cicero's horti help to solidify his self-presentation as belonging to the line of famous philosophers.140

Spencer comments upon how landscape and garden spaces were used to marry aesthetics and morality in Roman discourse. One of the required features of a garden is that it is a delineated space, still permeable but in some way structured by a border or frame. Catullus 61 is located in one of the most famous 'framed' poetic landscape; Greece's Mount Helicon, sacred to the Muses. The presence of Venus (as the protecting patron of gardens) in the poem stimulates the audience to consider the landscape of the garden. At the centre of both the poem and the garden is a bride- to- be, likened to 'such a hyacinth flower as blooms in a rich man's colourful little garden' (Cat. 61.87-9). In this poem marriage is intertwined with visual pleasure, sexuality and fertility. The garden is strongly fashioned as the 'place where the family is collectively sustained and nurtured'.141 Gardens, like families and marriages, are contained and must be carefully controlled and cultivated. For Romans, in both literary representations and constructed physical spaces gardens linked cultivation of food and plants with the pursuit of wisdom. There existed a biographical quality in the relationship between a person and their garden; as the garden grows so too does the cultivator and vice versa. Catullus' heavy symbolism suggests his pastoral scene is laid out to stimulate his audience to consider how to construct their relationships between human and nature, the individual and collective, and the constituent elements in society.142 The philosophical overtones of a Roman horti would have been even more emphasised by their use as a spatial setting for leisured movement and the philosophical dialogue this involved in a continual solidifying of the relationship between the two. Gardens were considered the right location for discussions of how to behave (or how not to), what makes a good Roman citizen and the individual within society. These topics were also stimulated by the decorative program of these public horti, since philosophical conversation was often led by the visual cues encountered whilst carrying out the social leisurely walk.

140 Jones (2014) 794. 141 Spencer (2010) 24. 142 Spencer (2010) 24.

[41]

Roman Domination

The control of nature is central to what landscape and horti meant in ancient Rome. The reading of Roman landscapes was part of an established Graeco-Mediterranean dialogue concerned with how humankind relates to the natural environment. Gardens were not just a pleasurable respite from the dusty city and midday heat, but an appropriate control over the environment suggested a harmony between citizen, Natura, and the realms of myth and deity.143 Augustus used this connection to his advantage; the multitude of green spaces and the proliferation of horticultural symbols throughout the city signified a long awaited concord between humans and gods, the flourishing of the res publica, and the assertion that the unnatural bloodshed of civil war was over.

It was widely recognised in antiquity that there was a tendency for those in power to wish to express that power by altering the face of nature. The fable concerning the man who proposed to Alexander the Great to fashion Mount Athos into a colossal likeness of Alexander holding an entire inhabited city in his hand was almost a proverb by Cicero's time (Vitr. 2; Cic. Rep. 3). This was set against a background of the great reliefs of the Persian kings and the awe inspiring monuments of the Egyptians. These had undoubtedly influenced the Hellenistic monarchs subsequent to Alexander, and in turn the Roman elite who travelled further east in campaigns.144

However, despite the foreign nuances and the references to regal luxury, landscape gardens became emblematic of Rome's new status as an imperial centre and cultural arbiter and collector. Pompey was one of the first to bring plants and trees back from campaigns in the East and use them in his triumph (Plin. Nat. 12.111). Pompey made great use of these in his pleasure parks; others began to copy this and imported trees became key components of Roman military triumphs and horti. The increasing amount of imported specimen plants displayed the extent of Roman power to every visitor, helping to construct the identity of Rome as the centre of the world and Romans as the most powerful people in that world.

143 Spencer (2010) 156. 144 Purcell (1987) 190- 191.

[42]

Purcell splits ways of altering landscape in antiquity into three lines of tradition. First there is tampering with the sea, such as King Xerxes and his bridge at the Hellespont. The second concerns water, and the creation of canals, waterways, waterfalls etc where there were none before. The third landscape modification was artificial altitude; tumuli and pyramids etc. These gave the illusion that those responsible for them could make or move mountains.145 The vast constructions of the seats of theatres and amphitheatres can be seen in this light; and the huge structure at the end of Pompey's theatre-portico-garden complex could be seen as an artificial recreation of a terraced slope. Both Agrippa and Augustus were aware of the connotations of altering landscape, and were not to be outdone by Pompey. Augustus built a huge tumulus, his mausoleum, construction of which began even before he was in sole power. Agrippa, working as Augustus' right hand man, created a long ornamental culvert which decorated the Campus Martius. It was a mile long, ten feet wide, and crossed by miniature marble bridges.146 Thus the large public horti of Rome conveyed messages of domination over the vast empire of Rome, and nature itself, to all those who visited. The identity of citizens of Rome was constantly reaffirmed as a proud part of the dominant nation, and visitors to Rome from far flung lands were shown a city that truly was greater than their own.

Danger in the Garden

We have already commented upon the liminal nature of gardens. The potentially dangerous transgression of the boundary between rus and urbs was one of the reasons gardens were viewed with a quality of ambivalence in antiquity.147 Another reason involves the use of landscape as repository for social memory and communication that we have discussed. Alien geography was as much a focus of Republican or Imperial subjugation as the campaigning enemy, since landscape was considered a repository of shared values. Roman horti became a medium for negotiating tensions between the alien and native environment, since often foreign exotic plants were brought back for planting and foreign landmarks were

145 Purcell (1987) 191- 193. 146 Purcell (1987) 192. 147 Beard (1995) 29.

[43] imitated in Roman horti. With the succumbing of Romans such as Scipio Africanus to the foreign charms of Hellenism, the fashion of incorporating Greek architectural features into the villa or horti had often excited negative comment (Varr. RR. 2.2). 'The conflation of villa architecture with the quintessentially Roman hortus to produce the luxury horti was both alien and threatening to traditional mores'.148 We have already mentioned the moralists' views concerning the increase of luxury in Rome, and Roman horti were a large part of the dialogue relating to the dangers of luxury.

It has been said that 'Roman art stage macrocosm by constructed microcosm, and its pathways proffered imaginary journeys in the outer world'.149 The images and sculptures in gardens consistently invited viewers to place themselves in the time and place of the story depicted, and even to complete the narrative by being cast in a role the posited situation might allow. The Roman mind was acculturated to landscape sensibility. They considered the picture they were offered and subsequently what mythic or far off place and role they were being asked to play. Kuttner suggests the idea that images and topographies in horti restaged grave challenges that Romans might have met in real life. Thus the beautiful and safe garden scenery allowed them to achieve catharsis for any past or anticipated anxiety. She looks at how the water gardens at Sperlonga and Tivoli allowed visitors to engage in games of such make-believe, casting themselves in the roles of mythical voyagers who had suffered much to contribute to the grandeur of their nation. On a smaller, more personal scale, visitors must have felt a shiver of danger or been unsettled by a spying Silenus or Satyr amidst the leaves and the references to Dionysiac mystery and danger in the garden. The presence of sculptures of warrior Amazons reminded visitors how closely violence and sexual perversion lurked, even in Rome. Sculptures of dying barbarians or those commemorating wars invoke ideas of conflict and noble death.150 The replay of such dangers in allegorical forms, free from any personal danger, would help build up identification with the Roman state and its civic heroes, thereby reaching an ideal sense of community.151 The controlled dangers and challenges offered in the garden setting helped to sharpen present ease and comfort by contrast, and promise relief from any past or future

148 Von Stackelberg (2009) 64. 149 Kuttner (2003) 106. 150 Spencer (2010) 165. 151 Conan (2003) 21.

[44] anguish.152 Any collective social anxieties could be addressed in such a garden space, in a manner which did not require much complicity from viewers since this process was a natural and easy one for Romans.

Pleasure in the Garden

The Roman garden was a permeable, encounter- generating space, relatively free from social control and surveillance. The notion of a garden as a heterotopia of deviation and liminal space affected categories of gender, status and class, and helped to elide differences within these categories as a mediating space. The conversion of Rome's private horti into public parks demonstrated a spatial logic that accepted gardens as appropriate places for mixed social gathering, allowing the mixing of genders and classes.153 The frequent inclusion of hermaphrodite and gender ambiguous imagery in horti 'suggests that garden space blurred the distinction between masculine and feminine just as it did between categories of interior and exterior, and between public and private'.154 Bacchic references with scenes of drinking, partying and sexual pursuit set a tone of hedonism. Spaces such as the garden portico complex of Pompey quickly became places for soliciting prostitutes (Catul. 55.10.12). The Roman garden belonged to Venus, and thus it is unsurprising horti had associations of sex and love. The public parks were 'spaces were the sexes could mix and different social classes interacted; it offered freedom and a chance to break some of Rome's strict social rules'.155 Boundaries were able to be transgressed but within a controlled set of circumstances, as a form of social safety valve. As such, the public parks of Rome would have been instrumental in identity formation, since these liminal areas of experimentation are often where individuals learn to set their own experiences within the larger societal norms and collective identity.

152 Kuttner (2003) 156. 153 Von Stackelberg (2009) 70. 154 Von Stackelberg (2009) 71. 155 Macaulay-Lewis (2013) 113.

[45]

Conclusions

It is clear from all of the above that the Roman horti was indeed a vehicle of cultural communication that carried much inherent information within its physical form. We have discussed but a few of the connotations conveyed by the public parks of Rome, undoubtedly we would find more if time allowed. The connection of horti with time, mourning and memory show these spaces to be highly important when considering Holkeskamp's notion of the educative and normative function of 'collective/cultural memory'. The sacred and philosophical aura ensures the horti are places of reflection and contemplation, both on one's place in the natural order of things and one's individual identity. The overt suggestion of Rome's dominance over nature and the subjugated empire can be easily read in the manipulation of landscape and the utilisation of foreign plantings. Thus these garden spaces helped to reconstruct the collective Roman identity, damaged from years of internal bloodshed, to be proud of being part of the most powerful city in history. The pleasurable aesthetics, cheerful hedonistic tone, saturated with the possibility of not just sexual freedom, but also the blurring of other social boundaries made these spaces highly attractive to all classes of Rome. Thus people were drawn into these horti and then exposed to all of the above connotations we have looked at.

[46]

The Development of the Uses of horti

We have explored the long standing elite Roman tradition of manipulating the cityscape of Rome to advertise their power and create popular support for their political career. Throughout book 6 of his treatise on architecture Vitruvius makes clear that for Romans, displaying the self via appropriate architectural features was closely linked to a Roman's ability to persuade others to see him on his own terms. By demonstrating his command of the shared symbolic values of self -display the agent substantiates his own right to take a major role in civic life and to compete politically to both represent and guide the citizen body of Rome.156 Late Republican Rome was full of monumental messages of self-display, and the traditional public spaces within the interior of the city were saturated with competing advertisements and narratives. As the density of buildings within Rome increased, green areas within the city were correspondingly more important, as we shall see. The creation of parks for public use was seen as a humane act of beneficence for the population of Rome, as well as serving propagandistic purposes for the donor.157 The creation of 'comfortable, stimulating conversational avenues and spaces in Rome... was a key innovation for a city unaccustomed to recreational public space'.158 It is unsurprising that these spaces became part of the image- making package for their wealthy owners. Public horti offered a pleasing range of activities; a respite from the heat and dust of the city, a philosophical stroll, a social afternoon outing, a chance for seclusion, or an experience similar to that of visiting an art gallery. However, underpinning all of these experiences of landscape was the unremitting authority of the sponsor of the garden. This could be seen explicitly in the decorative program and sheer size of the garden, implicitly in the availability and fertility of the garden itself, and conceptually in the kinds of narratives evoked by the combination of the garden's imagery and the personal memory of the visitor.159 We shall now turn to the development of the use of public horti, from the innovations of Pompey, to the plans of Julius Caesar, ending with the all encompassing strategy of Augustus.

156 Spencer (2010) 146. 157 Farrar (1998) 180. 158 Spencer (2010) 169. 159 Spencer (2010) 161.

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Pompey

Pompey was, arguably, the first to ensure public parks became an important feature of Rome's urban landscape. Pompey began to blur the boundary between public and private with the use of his horti (thought to be on the Campus Martius) and the public theatre portico complex nearby also on the Campus Martius. Pompey used his highly visible private horti to achieve his political aims in an innovative way. Plutarch reports that when Pompey was lavishing money amongst the tribes of Rome to secure the election of Afranius as consul in 61 BC, the people were invited into Pompey's gardens to obtain this money (Plut. Pomp. 44.3). This is the earliest attested instance in which a member of the political elite admitted a large number of the plebs urbana into his private garden to help promote his political aims.160 It is clear that by this point in time pleasing the people had become a critical component in political calculation. Instead of following the usual pattern of self- promotion and adding individual elements to the city, Pompey completely remodelled a vast chunk of the Campus Martius, including his garden theatre complex, into a kind of 'theme park', constantly retelling the story of his personal power and magnificence.161 The relative isolation of the space, created by small entrances and high walls, meant that the portico- garden complex was an inwardly focussed space, explicitly distinct from the rest of the city, forcing reflection and concentration.162 In such a space Pompey could fully dictate the message he wanted to convey since it was removed from any competing messages. Pompey had recognised that gardens were not only a popular and palatable medium to advertise his political power, but also that these spaces could reflexively affect popular conception of this power, and therefore increase his influence.

By 61BC Pompey had achieved impressive victories across three continents; Africa, Europe and Asia. However, in 59 BC Pompey was unpopular amongst the Roman people, who were critical of his political activities (Cic. Att. 2.19). After completing yet another successful campaign against Mithridates, Pompey decided to commemorate his success in a more individual and permanent form than another triumph (Plin. Nat. 37.12-16). He began to build a colossal, extravagantly beautiful public portico garden complex, which also

160 D'Arms (1995) 34. 161 Spencer (2010) 11. 162 Macaulay- Lewis (2007) 105.

[48] constituted part of an attempt to gain popularity. This space, completed in 55 BC, contained temples, lavish public gardens, a theatrical space, and a quadriportico. Pompey was surely aware that allowing the admittance of urban Romans into spaces usually reserved for the elite promoted an atmosphere of social inclusion that could generate political goodwill.163

The architectural form of Pompey's complex, for which few archaeological remains are accessible, is known mostly from the Forma Urbis Romae, a marble plan of Rome produced by Septimius Severus in the early third century AD. However, despite the lack of direct archaeological evidence, this remarkable space survives textually in possibly the broadest and most varied textual references on any monument in Rome.164 This is perhaps not too surprising, considering the innovative nature of the space and the popularity of this location for leisured walking in late Republican and early Imperial Rome, confirmed by the multiplicity of incidental references in ancient sources. The complex was a triumphal monument, celebrating Pompey's military success in the east, and dedicated to Venus Victrix, Pompey's patron goddess. The military implications of the site were underlined by its position in the Campus Martius, the display of manubial art, and the plantings of foreign plants collected during his campaigns. The long rectangular portico consisted of a colonnade enclosing a garden precinct (180 x 135m), which was a highly ordered space and contained a sacred double grove, or nemus duplex.165 The horti itself and the temple dedicated to Venus atop the cavea clearly displayed Pompey as the consort of Venus and promoted the notion of Pompey as divinely supported.166

The portico provided an opportunity to immerse visitors in an attractive, enclosed space, that could be composed with a remarkable coherency of message. As a location for Roman leisured walking, which in itself stimulated intellectual debate, Pompey would have been able to influence such debate by carefully selecting the art displayed. The art consisted of a curated collection with multiple references to Pompey's eastern victories. The display of spoils of war allowed the urban populace to participate vicariously in military success, manipulating individual identities to incorporate civic pride and patriotism. Pliny describes fourteen marble statues, personifying the nations which Pompey had conquered, arranged

163 Von Stackelberg (2009) 76. 164 Kuttner (1999) 344; ( see for eg; Ov. Ars. 1.67, Mart. 11.1.11, 11.47.3.). 165 Claridge (1998) 214. 166 Kuttner (1999) 346.

[49] all around the complex (Plin. Nat. 36.4.41). The dispersed nature of this collection would have had a profound effect upon viewers in motion. The repetitive experience of finding these statues whilst walking would serve to accentuate their sheer number, echoing Pompey's victorious movement throughout the geographical space of the east. Thus as people moved through the garden space, they learned about the distant empire ruled by Rome, but with Pompey placed at its very heart.167

The portico complex included references to every functional sphere of Roman civic duty; political (it included a new curia), military and religious. This helped to accentuate the notion of this space as a separate city centre, but one full of ordered aesthetic beauty and affirmative visual cues concerning the military power of Rome and what it meant to be Roman. The space projected the impression to visitors that they were living and moving in the best of all Romes, shaping their perception of reality, although in actuality, Rome was in an extended process of civil war and internal disaster. Transforming social life is also about changing space.168 Pompey was here presenting an idea of what Rome could look like under his rule. By the provision of spaces which acted to project the impression of the long awaited unified and idealised Rome upon viewers, Pompey was attempting to alter the reality of Rome, uniting the entirety of the city under his exemplary leadership as he had in his complex. It must be remembered that the leisured movement occurring in the portico was of an intellectual nature. Those perambulating around the space would have had an acute awareness of the ideologies articulated in their surroundings, and resulting conversation would have followed the visual stimuli provided. Thus Pompey would be located at the centre of the process of elite self- definition that took place in this space.

The inclusion of a rich decorative program combined art, shade, sculpture and pleasant foliage to provide a luxurious public space for leisured walking in Rome. The notion of Pompey's divine support was continually offered to visitors to the space, and walkers could realign their civic identity into a citizen of a victorious city partially ruled by a blessed man. Pompey's gift of public horti, as discussed, followed the Republican tradition of private

167 Macaulay- Lewis (2007) 110. 168 Tonkiss (2005)131.

[50] wealth benefitting the public, and his erection of the Porticus Pompei caused public parks to become an important feature of Rome's urban landscape.169

Caesar

Unfortunately we have much less information concerning the horti of Caesar and Augustus compared to the portico garden of Pompey. The specifics of the decorative program are less known and thus we must content ourselves with the likelihood that the type of sculpture was most likely similar to that of other gardens, including those of Pompey, since these horti worked in a similar fashion.

Caesar was clearly alert to the significance and impact of the manoeuvres of Pompey, as can be seen by the actions he undertook in response. Purpose designed public landscapes could be paralleled by an alternative gesture; throwing open ones' private gardens, as Caesar chose to do. Caesar selected a site on the Janiculum Hill across the Tiber for his horti. Although slightly less fashionable than other sites in the city, the cheaper land cost probably would have allowed him a larger scope for display. Both Pompey and Caesar's gardens, paid for by successful military campaigns, signalled not only their personal wealth, but also suggested the land granted by them to loyal veterans. As previously discussed, the Roman garden was as much a conceptual space as a physical one, and through it Romans saw many other types of garden space. Much of the allegiance of troops stemmed from the fact that truly successful generals were the men who managed to pass a lex agraria allotting land for soldiers once a military campaign was over (Cic. Ag. 2.28).170 In 59 BC Caesar had been seen to be pushing a bill including a provision that poor Roman men attempting to support families with three or more children should also be granted land. He even proposed that the fertile public land in Campania be utilised for this end. This encountered strong opposition from the Senate, but Caesar used both force and his popularity to push the lex agraria through.171 Thus when Caesar, like Pompey, began to use his horti as a congregational loci for supporters and opened up this green space for the people of Rome,

169 Macaulay- Lewis (2013) 109. 170 Von Stackelberg (2009) 75. 171 Lovano (2015) 451-2.

[51] see below, the memory of the land reforms he pushed through granting land for citizens must have been evoked in the visitors' mind.

Despite a few issues of evidence, the cumulative force of the literary and epigraphical evidence shows that in 46 BC Caesar opened his private gardens for a huge public feast (epulum publicum) to which he invited a large mass of the plebs urbana (Val. Max. 9.15.1). Caesar used the occasion of his Spanish triumph as a reason to inaugurate the public use of his horti. Plutarch tells us that over 22,000 triclinia were prepared, implying that 198,000 people attended, but this could well be an exaggeration (Plut. Caes. 55.4). However even if this is exaggeration, its inclusion by Plutarch suggests it to be a fact believable to his audience; potentially the feast was remembered in Roman memory as a huge event. It must be remembered that Caesar had defeated the young Pompeius in Spain rather than a foreign enemy, and many Romans had died there. Caesar, therefore, was forced to make a large effort to combat any bitter feeling in Rome and secure the goodwill of the people.172 The symbolism of the feast had another political aspect; earlier that year Caesar had reformed the corn dole with the lex julia frumentaria. The crowd of plebs urbana invited into the horti were the same people Caesar had ensured to be eligible for the corn dole. Thus, the communal meal offered in this instance by Caesar also referred to the regularity with which he provided for the people of Rome.173 Public feasts such as these were usually located in public areas, choosing a private site was an unusual innovation. However, Julius had long promoted the descent of the Julian family from Venus, the goddess of the garden, and had struggled to reclaim the patronage of Venus away from Pompey. The setting of the garden allowed Caesar, and his successor, to use the associations between divine support, green spaces and gardens to reaffirm his claim to power.174 Added to this, the extraordinary gesture of benefaction to the masses on Caesar's own private property helped to bind the urban masses more closely to an individual man of power, helping to set himself in the role of benefactor of the city. Through such innovation Caesar proved how private Roman horti could bring benefit to the people of Rome and also thereby serve his larger political aims. These very gardens were bequeathed in Caesars' will, along with all of the sumptuous decor, to the people of Rome, for their enjoyment (Suet. Jul.

172 D'Arms (1995) 41. 173 Von Stackelberg (2009) 76. 174 Von Stackelberg (2009) 103.

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83.2). D'Arms suggests that it is highly likely that Caesar used the occasion of this feast 'in his transtiberian gardens to advertise his testamentary intentions, in the presence of his future beneficiaries'.175 Caesar, even more so than Pompey, blurred the distinction between public and private horti, and his actions altered 'the use of Rome's horti from locations where elite rivalries played out into quasi-public spaces where political events transpired'.176

Augustus

This exploration of the development of public horti at the end of the Republic provides a foundation from which to examine how Augustus utilised garden space in rebuilding and constructing a new Rome and Roman identity, both of which were firmly centred upon Augustus himself. Augustus was quick to pick up on the potential power of green space in Rome. Indeed, he acted with great speed to subsume the political overtones of Pompey's garden and theatre when he came to power after Caesar's murder in Pompey's own curia. This shows his acute awareness of the agency of environment to influence social memory, especially the agency of gardens in Rome. For example, the room in which Caesar was murdered was quickly closed, and later turned into a public latrine (Dio. Cass. 47.19.1). Additionally, Augustus confirmed the political nature of the Roman garden by modifying the garden of Pompey and its' architectural features to his own ends. Only a few small changes would have needed to be made in order to interfere with the totality of the message Pompey had created, such as the removal of the central statue of Pompey. Augustus recognised the benefits to his own self-representation of providing pleasant public space in the city, and the creation of public parks 'was an act of euergetism that confirmed his position as sole head of the social and political system'.177 The public garden space could be viewed as a material expression of concern for public wellbeing. Augustus did not wait to bequeath horti to the public in a will, as his adoptive father had done. Instead he utilised the enormous space of the Campus Martius, which he was already filling with carefully planned

175 D'Arms (1995) 42. 176 Macaulay- Lewis (2013) 103. 177 Von Stackelberg (2009) 78.

[53] monumental works, intended to be read in a collective matrix. The importance of this major long term plan for Augustus may be deduced from the fact that his mausoleum was conceived of even before he acquired sole power.178 He placed his network of monuments within a vast public garden, with varied trees and splendid walks (Suet. Aug. 100.4). Augustus displayed much interest in 'greening' Rome, combining an extensive building program with substantial use of lush natural elements. In addition Augustus' constant utilisation of laurels and vegetative imagery both in public monuments and private decoration caused representations of horti to be spread throughout the city, even where there was no green space.179 During his lifetime Augustus made a large number of garden spaces available to the public; his garden and residence on the Palatine, the horti pompeiani, the huge garden complex on the Campus Martius, and the sacred grove of his grandsons Lucius and Gaius (the nemus caesarum) (Suet. Aug. 50-51/Dio 54.27.3, 54.29.4).180

Augustus' interest in garden space was, however, much more complex and purposeful than simply creating pleasure areas for the people of Rome in order to make himself popular. In chapter two we briefly covered the Roman self-fashioning of their identity as an agricultural community, skilled at working the land. Indeed, Roman origin myths often fixated on exploring the relationships between 'being Roman' and the pastoral quality of the pre-urban city site. Additionally, we have explored the reading of landscape as a site of memory, allowing access to ancient traditions and qualities of the ideal Roman.181 However, the success and inevitable expansion of Rome as an imperial centre had ensured that most citizens no longer owned their own farms in the hinterland. This had created a type of cultural fracture, based on a lost connection with the land. Without their perceived relationship to the countryside Romans could not access their cultural and collective memory, and the autochthonic qualities of Rome's historical imagination were under threat. The flowering of pastoral and bucolic poetry at this time serves to show a contemporary popular perception of this problem. A sense of loss is often created by the nostalgic qualities of pastoral's evocation of a vanished natural harmony. The sense of place and honest work

178 Boatwright (1995) 75. 179 Von Stackelberg (2009) 91. 180 Von Stackelberg (2009) 78. 181 Spencer (2010) 13.

[54] associated with agriculture, small holdings, and family farms are reconfigured 'as signs of a vanished, easy relationship with the natural environment that humankind can no longer access'.182 It is easy to see how some Romans could have blamed the destruction of traditional values and the violent demise of the Republic itself upon this particular cultural fracture, amongst other postulated reasons.

After the cessation of almost fifty years of continual bloodshed and ferocious civil war, Augustus had finally emerged the victor, despite ostensibly returning power to the Senate and refusing the title 'dictator'. Rarely in history has a leader seized power through such violent ends and yet managed to gain and maintain popular support as Augustus did. I would argue that Augustus' use of horti played a large role in this process, and his gardens were heterotopias of crisis that mediated the difficult transition period into the Principate.

Augustus' manipulation of Roman horti was coupled with a motif of the Golden Age that played a large role in Rome throughout Augustus' lifetime. The notion of a qualitatively different and happier existence belonged to a long tradition stretching back beyond any extant literature. The first allusion to an alternative and superior way of life can be found in Hesiod. He describes a golden race of men who lived 'remote and free from toil and grief', in a world where 'the fruitful earth unforced bore them fruit abundantly and without stint' (Hes. WD. 1.111-120). Such an emphasis on peaceful fertility and abundance was also a major part of Roman dialogues concerning the Golden Age. Numerous scholars attribute Roman fascination with the Golden Age to Virgil's Fourth Eclogue of 37 BC, which uses the present tense to describe the return of the golden race and the abundance of untilled soil brought about by Augustus.183 Similar themes were subsequently used by many artists and authors of Augustan Rome. The notion of a return to better times corresponded with Augustus' program of so called renewal, and the imagery of such a Golden Age became representative of the new Augustan Rome. Augustus undertook an ambitious program of both religious and moral renewal, with laws encouraging marriage and procreation within wedlock, and advocating a return to traditional Roman religion and values. Part of this return to traditional values involved the provision of horti and green spaces for the people of Rome, allowing them to reconnect to the land in an attempt to heal the wounds of civil

182 Spencer (2010) 32. 183 Wallace- Hadrill (1982) 20.

[55] war. Indeed, notions of the Golden Age evolved further from the Hesiodic notion that a Golden Age would be given if humankind worked hard and behaved righteously. Cicero sets out one view of humankinds' relationship with nature, in which he describes the world as a limitless supply of resources (Cic. ND. 2.150-152). The natural world was filled with 'raw materials primed for the right, skilled, and equipped labourer... this way of thinking suggests that rather than struggling against the momentum of history to recreate a lost world of Golden Age leisure, Romans simply needed to dig in, and to develop a close working relationship with their ethnoscape'.184 Thus we see a clear connection between the appearance of Golden Age imagery and the horti created by Augustus.

Scholars have often expounded upon the positive imagery of peaceful fertility and prosperity characterising the Golden Age motif, with imagery that reflected a new era of blessedness. Whilst this is one facet of the motif, out interpretation must not be limited to only one meaning and we must attempt to recreate the visuality of a contemporary Roman. It should be remembered that the peace of the Augustan age was primarily purchased by the preceding years of civil strife and bloodshed. Every single Roman, regardless of origin, would have viewed the Golden Age motif through a contextual lens of prior suffering. Both the Golden Age motif and horti were used to help Romans to reconcile their past experience of violence with the discourses of prosperity and peace defining the new regime. In itself the very introduction of a 'new age' is one that presupposes the end of the era before, helping Romans to distance themselves from the trauma of the preceding years. In turning to one of the most famous monuments of the Augustan program, the Ara Pacis, we can see that the decoration directs viewers as to how to proceed into their new age. The lower half of the outer wall is covered in a detailed relief of a pattern of vines, which have often been read as referring to the Golden Age. However, some are of the opinion that the design of the vines points to the Golden Age as a goal requiring continued effort, rather than an already obtained idyll. Firstly, the many viewers who would have cultivated a vine of their own would have been aware of the necessary great care and attention that goes into such a project. Second, amongst the lush vines small animals can be seen, such as the snake attacking a birds' nest. This reminds viewers that peace and growth are never unthreatened

184 Spencer (2010) 32.

[56] and require endeavour to achieve and maintain.185 In a similar way, the Augustan program of renewal presented itself explicitly through the language and imagery of cultivation, including the care and cultivation of the hortus.186 We have already discussed the Roman association between the cultivation of plants and the pursuit of wisdom; and the biographical quality in the relationship between a person and their garden. Augustus placed himself in the role of all -knowing cultivator, and both symbolically and literally made the entirety of Rome into his garden. As Rome grew in beauty and stability, so too did the power of Augustus.

In the first chapter of this paper, leisurely walking was established as a culturally specific type of movement in the Roman world. In terms of movement, leisurely walking became a method of displaying and maintaining the social hierarchy. Leisured movement was an important activity of the elite, and to undertake such a walk with another person was almost a virtual show of friendship or political connection. The tradition of leisured walking retained qualities of the philosophical ambulation from which it was derived, and physical and intellectual movement were mutually tied together. The philosophical aspect of leisured movement further ensured that this specialised movement was part of a process of elite self-definition, especially due to the usual topics of philosophical debate undertaken during such walks; identity, the state, and qualities of the ideal Roman. An exploration of agency has helped elucidate how material objects, including the surrounding environment, can affect people. The spatial context for leisured walking in particular played an influential role in directing movement of both the body and the mind. Gaze was connected to intellectual endeavour, just like movement. Discussion undertaken during leisured walks often followed the gaze, and reflected upon aspects of the surrounding space. In both Greek and Roman philosophical debate participants often encountered an object that directed conversation. Thus, the Roman horti, as locations for leisured movement, must have had a substantial influence upon the philosophical conversation and subsequently the process of self-definition. Augustus realised the potential of these garden spaces for reconstructing Roman identity after the horrors of the civil wars. The creation of public spaces open to all also helped to recreate the class hierarchy that had begun to break down at the end of the

185 Galinksy (1996) 152. 186 Von Stackelberg (2009) 89.

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Republic. On the one hand horti acted as social safety valves, mixing classes and genders under conditions of controlled encounter.187 On the other, slow leisured movement was a performance of elite status. The incessus of a person displayed their social rank, and the continual repetition of this process in front of an audience helped to create and maintain social hierarchy.

Augustus' use of garden space was an interesting manipulation of the associations inherent in such spaces for a Roman. In chapter two of this paper, the garden was shown to be a highly conceptual space as well as physical. Historically it had links to notions of commonality, identity and social status, all of which were in a state of crisis following the demise of the Republic. Their liminal, heterotopian quality made the garden into a space that embodied culturally troubling ideas yet provided a secure space for exploring these dangers safely.

Gardens have a remarkable relationship to time and memory, for Romans in particular, because they are spaces that can bridge the gap between the past, present and future, as we have seen. Because of this, they played a large role in the creation of and access to the cultural or collective memory of Romans. Impaired access to this collective memory can cause many problems in a society, and Romans themselves at that time had been lamenting the departure from traditional values and customs. In opening these spaces to the public, Augustus was presenting Romans with a possible route of return back to their origins as farmer-citizens, and all of the traditional mores that they felt they had lost.

Augustus' emphasis upon his relationship with Venus is well known and studied. The sudden all -pervasive images of gardens and flourishing green spaces throughout Rome must have advertised that the new Rome under Augustus was very much protected and approved of by Venus herself. Some had seen the continual bloodshed in Rome as symptomatic of a broken relationship with the gods, and so the positive connection between Augustus, Venus and public horti must have been a welcome one. The multitude of green spaces signified the long awaited concord between the gods and humans, helping to assert that the horrors of the previous era had finished, and allowing Romans to begin the new blessed era brought in by Augustus.

187 Von Stackelberg (2009) 78.

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The power and might of the Roman empire was also clearly proclaimed by these vast, luxurious and wondrous garden spaces. We have discussed the visible display of power caused by altering the face of nature. The importation of exotic trees, art and architectural forms from all across the Roman world advertised how wide the influence of Rome had spread. The elements of danger introduced by Roman garden spaces are fascinating. By providing walkers with replays of dangerous situations (through the medium of sculpture or simply the unruly quality of nature itself), the garden allowed visitors to play out these dangers within a safe environment, in a cathartic fashion. Finally, in a beautifully neat circular fashion, Roman horti were attractive pleasant spaces that encouraged people to spend time in them. This meant that the citizens of Rome were easily persuaded to enter these spaces and willingly become subject to the agency of the space and all of the undercurrents we have discussed.

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Conclusion

Pompey may have been the first leader to begin to understand the ways in which horti could be manipulated in the new political atmosphere at the end of the Republic. It was an experiment that Caesar was almost compelled to take part in, so intense was the rivalry between himself and Pompey. However, it was Augustus, with the help of Agrippa, who really cultivated the connection between horti, Roman identity and collective memory. Previously, Pompey and Caesar had used gardens to further their own political agendas as vehicles of communication. It was this that 'laid the groundwork for Augustus' use of garden space to create a new political stability'.188 In the cultural imagination of the Roman empire, horti prompted debates about proper behaviour.189 These debates would have been strongly influenced by their spatial setting, as already discussed, and by the programme of renewal also created by Augustus through his moral and religious reformation. Augustus' total domination over the whole city enabled him to create a strong ubiquity of message that pervaded every aspect of life, even that of leisure. He used ancient associations of Roman horti to both create and proclaim a new era of growth and fertile happiness, linked back to the very roots of Roman agricultural identity and yet innovative enough to be at a distance from the civil wars that had just preceded it. I argue that Augustus' manipulation of horti played a significant role in his success. Having seized power violently and unconstitutionally, Augustus was able to re-integrate himself into a new society that was to a large extent his own creation, through his understanding of the connection between Roman cultural identity and horti.

188 Von Stackelberg (2009) 78. 189 Beard (1995) 24.

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