The ancients possessed, at a very early period, the luxury of roses, and the Romans brought it to perfection by covering with beds of these flowers the couches whereon their guests were placed, and even the tables which were used for banquets;[1] while some emperors went so far as to scatter them in the halls of their palaces. At Rome, they were, at one time, brought from Egypt in that part of the year when Italy could not produce them; but afterwards, in order to render these luxuries more easily attainable during the winter by the leaders of the ton in that capital city of the world’s empire, their gardeners found the means of producing, in green-houses warmed by means of pipes filled with hot water, an artificial temperature, which kept roses and lilies in bloom until the last of the year. Seneca declaimed, with a show of ridicule, against these improvements;[2] but, without being discouraged by the reasoning of the philosopher, the Romans carried their green-houses to such perfection that, at length, during the reign of Domitian, when the Egyptians thought to pay him a splendid compliment in honor of his birthday, by sending him roses in the midst of winter, their present excited nothing but ridicule and disdain, so abundant had winter roses become at Rome by the efforts of art. Few of the Latin poets have been[Pg 162] more celebrated for their epigrammatic wit than Martial; and his epigram “To C?sar, on the Winter Roses,” serves to show that the culture of roses at Rome was carried to such perfection as to make the attempts of foreign competitors subjects only for ridicule.

“The ambitious inhabitants of the land watered by the Nile have sent thee, O C?sar, the roses of winter, as a present valuable for its novelty. But the boatman of Memphis will laugh at the gardens of Pharaoh as soon as he has taken one step in thy capital city—for the spring, in its charms, and the flowers in their fragrance and beauty, equal the glory of the fields of P?stum. Wherever he wanders or casts his eyes, every street is brilliant with garlands of roses. And thou, O Nile, must now yield to the fogs of Rome. Send us thy harvests, and we will send thee roses.”

By this passage it is evident that the cultivation of Roses among the ancients was much farther advanced than is generally supposed. In another epigram Martial speaks again of roses, which were formerly seen only in the spring, but which, in his time, had become common during the winter. We are, also, but copyists of the Romans in the cultivation of flowers in windows; for vases of every style of beauty, and filled with roses, were a frequent ornament of their windows. Martial says that a miserly patron had made him a present of a very small estate, and adds that he has a much better country place in his window. Much that illustrates the use which the ancients made of roses in their ceremonies, in their festivals, and in their domestic life, may be found in various authors, evincing still more how very common the use of them had become. Florus relates that Antiochus, king of Syria, being encamped in the island of Eub?a, under woven tents of silk and gold, was not only accompanied by a band of musicians, but that he might yet more enhance his pleasures, he wished to procure roses; and[Pg 163] although it was in the midst of winter, he caused them to be collected from every quarter.

The gallants of Rome were in the habit of presenting their favorite damsels with the first roses that appeared in spring; and “Mea rosa” was an affectionate expression they often used to their betrothed.

We frequently find in old Latin authors an entire abandonment to pleasure and excessive luxury, signified by such expressions as “living in the midst of roses,” “sleeping on roses,” etc. (“Vivere in rosa,” “dormire in rosa.”)

Seneca speaks of Smyndiride, the most wealthy and voluptuous of the Sybarites, who could not sleep if a single one of the rose-petals with which his bed was spread, happened to be curled.

Cicero, in his “De finibus,” alludes to the custom which prevailed at Rome at that time, of reclining at the table on couches covered with roses; and comparing the happiness which virtue gives to the pleasures of luxury says, that “Regulus, in his chains, was more happy than Thorius drinking on a couch of roses, and living in such a manner that one could scarcely imagine any rare and exquisite pleasure of which he did not partake.”

The same author, in his celebrated speech against Verres, the greatest extortioner whose name is recorded in history, reproached him not only with the outrageous robberies and cruelties which he committed during the three years that he was governor of Sicily, but yet more with his effeminacy and licentiousness. “When spring commenced,” said the Roman orator, “that season was not announced to him by the return of Zephyr, nor by the appearance of any heavenly sign; it was not until he had seen the roses bloom that spring was visible to his voluptuous eye. In the voyages which he made across the province, he was accustomed, after the example of the kings of Bithynia, to be carried in a litter borne by eight men, in which he reposed, softly extended upon cushions[Pg 164] made of transparent material, and filled with roses of Malta, having in his hand a net of the finest linen, and equally full of these flowers, whose fragrance incessantly grati............