Gardens of the Roman Empire

Wilhelmina F. Jashemski (1910–2007) was the pre-eminent pioneer of garden archaeology. As Professor of Ancient History at the University of Maryland, she conducted over 25 years of fieldwork on the gardens buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, as well as gardens at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli and at Thuburbo Majus, Tunisia. Author of numerous books and articles, notably the Gardens of Pompeii (2 volumes; 1979 and 1992) and A Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge, 2002) she received the Gold Medal in Archaeology from the Archaeological Institute of America. Kathryn L. Gleason is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Archaeology at Cornell University, and has developed systematic methods for excavating Roman gardens throughout the Roman Empire. She has conducted archaeological excavations of gardens at Herod the Great's palaces, the villa of Horace at Licenza, the Villa Arianna at Stabiae, and the Petra Garden and Pool Project.  She is editor of The Archaeology of Garden and Field (1994) and The Cultural History of Gardens in Antiquity (2015). Kim J. Hartswick writes primarily on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. He was an Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology at George Washington University for 22 years and is presently the Academic Director of the City University of New York's Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. He is co-editor of Stephanos: Studies in Honor of Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway (1998) and the author of The Gardens of Sallust: A Changing Landscape (2004). Amina-Aïcha Malek is a researcher at the CNRS laboratory Archéologie et Philologie d'Orient et d'Occident (AOrOc) of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) and Paris Sciences Lettres Research University (PSL). As an expert on Roman garden archaeology and the reception of landscape mosaics in their architectural setting, she was Special Garden Archaeology Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks from 1999 to 2002, and has collaborated on international garden excavations. She is editor of The Sourcebook for Garden Archaeology (2013), co-founder and Vice-Chair of the Society of Garden Archaeology, and Project Director of the Programme de recherche archéologique de Lambèse-Tazoult, Algeria.

Introduction Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim J. Hartswick, and Amina-Aïcha Malek; Part I. The Main Types of Gardens: 1. The garden in the domus Eric Morvillez; 2. The Roman villa garden: actuality, ideology, and memory Kim J. Hartswick; 3. The archaeology of gardens in the Roman villa: gardens of allusion and production Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis; 4. Produce gardens: kitchen gardens, vineyards, orchards, and commercial flower gardens Wilhelmina F. Jashemski; 5. Temple gardens and sacred groves Maureen Carroll; 6. Gardens in baths and palaestras Janet DeLaine; 7. Gardens in gymnasia, schools, and scholae Maureen Carroll; 8. Roman tomb gardens John Bodel; Part II. The Experience of Gardens as Revealed by Literature and Art: 9. Greek literary evidence for Roman gardens and those of late antiquity Antony R. Littlewood; 10. Representations of gardens in Roman literature K. Sara Myers; 11. Frescoes in Roman gardens: painted worlds Bettina Bergmann; 12. Mosaics and nature in the Roman domus: cultural allusions Amina-Aïcha Malek; 13. Sculpture in ancient Roman gardens Kim J. Hartswick; Part III. Making the Garden: 14. Constructing the ancient Roman garden Kathryn L. Gleason and Michele A. Palmer; 15. Water and water technology in Roman gardens Gemma Jansen; 16. Gardening practices and techniques Wilhelmina F. Jashemski; 17. Plants of the Roman garden Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, Kathryn L. Gleason and Michael Herchenbach; 18. Conclusions: new perspectives on the Roman garden and its archaeology Kathryn L. Gleason, Kim J. Hartswick, Amina-Aïcha Malek and Michele A. Palmer.