Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Hortus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

HORTUS (κῆπος). A pleasure-ground or garden; which, from the descriptions left us, appears to have been very similar in style and arrangement to that of a modern Italian villa. Where space perrmitted it was divided into shady avenues (gestationes) for exercise in the sedan or palanquin (sella, lectica); rides for horse exercise (hippodromus); and an open space (xystus) laid out in flower beds bordered with box, and interspersed with evergreens clipped into prim forms or fanciful shapes, with taller trees, fountains, grottoes, statues, and ornamental works of art distributed at fitting spots about it. (Plin. Ep. v. 6.) This sketch of Pliny's garden might also pass for a faithful description of the pleasure grounds belonging to the Villa Pamfili at Rome.

2. The same term also includes the kitchen garden; the manner of arranging which, its cultivation, and the different kinds of vegetables grown in it, are detailed at great length by Columella, xi. 3.

3. Hortus pensilis. A moveable frame for flowers, fruits, or vegetables placed upon wheels, so that it could be drawn out into the sun by day, and removed under the cover of a glass-house at night. Plin. H. N. xix. 23. Compare Columell. xi. 3. 52.

4. Horti pensiles. In the plural, hanging gardens; i. e. artificially formed, in such a manner that the beds are raised in terraces one over the other, like steps, supported, or, as it were, suspended, upon tiers of vaulted masonry or brickwork, like the seats of a theatre. Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 20. Compare Curt. v. 1.