The gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas destroyed by Vesuvius

Abstract

Abstract The eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 which tragically destroyed the flourishing Campanian cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as countless villas in the surrounding countryside, made this area a unique source of information about many aspects of Roman life. Of great importance is the evidence for ancient gardens and cultivated land, such as can be known from no other ancient site. Elsewhere in the Roman Empire fragmentary remains have survived by chance, but in the area destroyed by Vesuvius living cities and thriving country villas are preserved, just as they were at the moment of destruction (figure 1) . All Italy was famous for its gardens. The ancient poet Lucretius (De rerum natura 5.1361-1378) extolled the beauty of the whole land and praised the way men had decked it out by planting it here and there. But Campania was particularly blessed. The ancient writers waxed eloquent describing this plain. The elder Pliny, who knew this area well (he lost his life while trying to rescue friends in the A.D. 79 eruption of Vesuvius), said that Campania surpassed all the lands of the world (Naturalis historia 18.111), a sentiment echoed by Florus (Epitome 1.16.3) who called it “the fairest of all regions, not only in Italy, but the whole world”. Campania, which owes its fertility to Vesuvius, is so fertile that in antiquity it bore four crops a year as it still does today (Strabo 5.4.3).