Posible origen iconogrfico de los triunfos del polifilo

It's an interesting point on Dionysian/Bacchic depictions. The most obvious

Greek portrayals of centaurs would be the Lapiths fighting the Centaurs, as we
find in what is believed to be the grave of one leading Macedonian of the late
4th century BC with all the associated symbolism that would seem to bring.
Against that one has the depictions which seem to be centred on cult sites -
whether in the Hieron of Samothrace, or the Asclepion at Pergamon, or even on
the great altar there where centaurs pull Dionysos' chariot etc. Centaurs,
grapes, wine, Nikes, and switching to the art on vases one gets the tripods and
sacrificial bulls. Orphism gets thrown about a fair amount but it really wasn't
that widespread as early as this, so (and assumptions acknowledged) would
this then place us into a much clearer cult site than a 'grave' as such?

The Roman portrayals tend towards Ariadne and Dionysos, whereas the Greek
seem more focused on other elements of the myth, and one has to wonder just
how much one can pull forwards. The little centaurs from Pompeii are fantastic,
but the comparisons are somewhat lacking for the male away from their torses
and certainly absent for the females. But there they are as Roman garden
gnomes. Well, at one point part of a fountain at least.

How often was Dionysos represented in bull form? With aspects of a bull, sure.
But in bull form itself? It would seem rare enough. Problem is, with sculpture of
bulls we have no way of knowing who the bull is meant to represent! Only clue
I have that Dionysos was indeed represented in bull form is from Plutarch, On
Isis and Osiris:

Plutarch. On Isis and Osiris XXXV.

That indeed he is the same with Bacchus, who is more fitted to know than yourself, Clea, you who
have headed the Bacchanals at Delphi, and have been initiated into the rites of Osiris, ever since your
childhood? But if for the sake of other people we must produce testimony, let us put on one side the
things not to be revealed; but the ceremonies the priests perform in public when they are conveying
the body on a raft, at the burial of the Apis, differ in nothing from the Bacchanalea; for they tie fawn-
skins about them, and carry thyrsi, and make shoutings and motions like those possessed with the
divine frenzy in honor of Bacchus; for which cause many of the Greeks represent Dionysos in the
form of a Bull in his images; and the women of the Eleians when praying, exhort the god with the
bulls foot, to come to them. The Argives too have a Bacchus by title the Bull-born; and they call
him up out of water by the sound of trumpets, casting into the deep pool as offerings to the
Pylaochus. The trumpets they conceal within the thyrsi as Socrates has described it in his treatise on
Rituals. The Titanic also and Nyctelean rites are of the same kind with the fabled tearing to pieces of
the body of Osiris, his returnings to life, and his new births; and, similarly, the stories about his
burials. For the Egyptians, as already stated, show Tombs of Osiris in many places; and the Delphians
believe that the relics of Bacchus are deposited with themselves by the side of the Oracle and their
Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the Temple of Apollo at what time the Bacchantes waken up
Him of the winnowing fan. And that the Greeks hold Bacchus for lord and leader not only of the wine
but of the whole element of Moisture, Pindar is sufficient testimony where he says, May Bacchus that
rejoiceth greatly in trees and pastures, augment the pure light of Autumn, for which reason it is
forbidden to those that worship Osiris to destroy any cultivated tree, or to stop up any spring of water.

These memoirs, illustrated with over 400 photographs, will delight anyone interested in
gardens or in the Roman world. They tell the human and the scientific story of how a
woman from a small town in Nebraska learned more about the gardens of Pompeii than
anyone thought possible. A master raconteur, professor of ancient history and teacher of a
popular general humanities class at the University of Maryland, Wilhelmina Jashemski will
fascinate both the Pompeian expert and the newcomer to the subject.

She set out in 1955 with her husband, Stanley Jashemski, to explore the gardens of the
Roman empire with the intent to write a scholarly book on the subject. At first she thought
Pompeii would be only one chapter. As she got into the subject, however, she realized that
many years were required to do justice to the gardens of the Vesuvian area alone. In 1961,
the Italian authorities, impressed by the thoroughness of her study of existing materials,
allowed her to re-excavate an open area. She surprised everyone by finding root cavities
and revealing the planting pattern of an ancient vineyard. She was then able to excavate
extensively in Pompeii and at the newly discovered grand villa of Oplontis nearby.

Stanley Jashemski, a physicist by profession, became a skilled photographer, draftsman,

and general travel and research manager. Using the best photographic equipment available
at the time, he recorded both the results of their research and the life around them. In this
volume, his pictures illustrate findings and events in Pompeii and Oplontis and also the
stories of their travels through England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland,
Greece, Egypt, Spain and Portugal.

The intended chapter on Pompeii turned into two magnificent volumes, The Gardens of
Pompeii, Herulaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, for which Wilhelmina received
the gold medal of the American Institute of Archaeology. She involved numerous natural
scientists in the study of material from her field work, and together they produced a third
volume, The Natural History of Pompeii. Her letters to her sister's children became the
basis of a much-loved children's book, Letters from Pompeii, which remains an excellent
introduction to Pompeii for children of any age, 8 to 80. Her observations of the use of
herbs for medicine by her workers led to the book A Pompeian Herbal. Stanley's
magnificent photographs were complemented by Wilhelmina's knowledge of ancient
writings on herbs in Wildflowers Amid the Ruins. Now again Stanley's pictures combine
with Wilhelmina's words in this posthumous publication of her memoirs of a remarkable
life.

All photographs in this edition are in full color. A black-and-white edition is available at a
lower cost. The text and pictures are otherwise the same in both editions.

She had the idea of trying to prove what plants would have been in roman gardens, and write a
book on the gardens of the Roman Empire, of which a chapter would be on Pompeii. She told
Tatiana Warscher this when she first met her, and that she thought that all the gardens of
Pompeii would have already been published. She remembered vividly the tart reply Only the
picture postcard stuff. Tatiana looked her straight in the eye and said My dear girl; your first
book will be on the gardens of Pompeii. Tatiana Warscher had been given her own key to all the
Pompeii houses, so they were able to go anywhere they wanted, just by unlocking the gate of
any house and gaining access. [Oh, what a boon!]. As they worked together day after day
studying house after house, garden after garden, large and small and with many features, she
began to realise the truth of what Mrs Warscher was telling her, and the single chapter became
the three large volumes on Pompeii for which she is famous.

There are many stories and anecdotes in the book which the reader will find very amusing. Her
memories of Pompeii in the late 1950s and 60s brought back happy memories for Jackie, of
when she first visited there in 1967 and 1968. Life seemed much simpler then, and it shows in
the photos, roads with only a few cars, houses without all the modern day trappings just the
necessities, and happy friendly faces at work on the excavations. Faces that became
Wilhelminas friends, and looked after her, even after Stanley died which left her devastated.
Without their friendship, she probably wouldnt have been able to carry on with what became her
lifetimes work, and a boon to all archaeologists, gardeners, and of course, anyone just interested
in the area of Pompeii and surrounds.

This book will be a positive read for anyone interested In Pompeii, gardens, history and roman
archaeology, and at the same time being an inspiration for those with an idea to just get out
there and make it happen. Her itinerary of the days spent in the area are detailed and
informative recording the visits, excavations, the publishing of the books and the many people
involved along the way.
 Wilhelmina and Stanley in 1959.
This book is a lasting tribute to Wilhelmina, her husband, her colleagues and friends, and her
very interesting life. It has been made possible by the tireless work of her friend Clopper Almon.
He visited Wilhelmina regularly in the years just before she died, and collaborated closely with
her to finish her memoirs for publication. After her death, he has now kept her wish for greater
access to the memoirs and photographs by publishing this book, and making sure the
photographs are well looked after, documented and accessible.

We are also honoured to have been given permission to include Stanleys Pompeii photos on
pompeiiinpictures. We have started to sort them out into the Pompeii addresses, and eventually
they will be a lasting remembrance both of Stanley and Wilhelmina and the friends she knew at
the Scavi, and of course, Wilhelminas friend and mentor, Tatiana Warscher.

The University of Maryland Library has the 18,000 photos and Wilhelminas papers and a visit to
study this special collection (with this book at your side) will really do them justice.

Gardens of Pompeii as Roman

Legacy
in Architectural History December 28, 2015 at 10:33 PM | 0 comments
Roman wallpainting from the House of the Golden Bracelets, Pompeii (Image courtesy of The
Telegraph and British Museum)

By Cher Stone Beall

Gardens are a vital part of urban Pompeii as perhaps the best known Roman city. From a
distance the location of some of the gardens in Pompeii must have revealed themselves with
treetops rising above walls encircling them. The gardens of Pompeii were spread throughout
the ancient city, not unlike other urban areas, and are part of the landscape architecture and
urban planning. About one third of the houses in the city had some variation of a garden. By 79
CE, the Roman urban garden, while still maintaining its functional role for providing added
food, was transformed under the influence of Greek aesthetics into pleasure garden, a place
of relaxation and even luxury. While city gardens can be associated with public spaces, most
were found in private homes. Very often, and certainly most desirably, the gardens of Pompeii
were the heart of the home. Gardens had a very important place in the life of the Pompeiis
people. Whether large or small, the garden could provide light, air and a place to work, play,
entertain, eat (as in the House of Actaeon) and even worship when household shrines were
present. [1]
A large house or villa might have several gardens including an elite viridarium a place of
greenery, often large as seen in the House of the Faun or the Vettii or a more prosaic,
courtyard hortus as seen in the House of the Surgeon, the House of the Golden Amorini or the
House of the Silver Wedding. Whether with or without a colonnaded peristyle, Gardens were
not confined to the rich. Many simpler houses had a smaller inner garden, a xystus (garden
walk or green terrace) with a few trees like cypress, laurel or fig and framing plants like
boxwood or herbs like rosemary, saffron and thyme to be used for the kitchen or similar
functions. These Pompeian gardens differed greatly not only in size, design, function and
plantings, but also with respect to the role of water, sculpture and garden furniture.[2]

Viridarium garden in House of the Vettii, Pompeii (Image in public domain

The Pompeian garden was essentially hybrid. The domestic garden was transformed, like
other areas of the house, by blending the Roman and Greek ideas and concepts. The Greeks
introduced the colonnaded courtyard or peristyle (from the Greek word peri all around and
styloi columns) to their public buildings and houses. The Romans later introduced the
peristyle into their public architecture in the great forums and temple precinct of Rome, and
from the second century BC it began to appear in houses. [3] (Roberts, 148). Even the Greek
paradeisos imported after Alexanders influence in places like Alexandria (paradeisos from
Persian pairi-daeza) were cosmopolitan gardens. [4] The Romans inventively used the
peristyle as a setting for their gardens. This green space at the center of their home was, for
some Romans, a link with their agrarian roots and simpler times. [5]

Plan of House of Faun, Pompeii (+50k sq ft), note two largest interior spaces are garden areas
(Image courtesy of Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger, 1988

The most popular style of garden during this time was the peristlye with its colonnades where
one could walk in the shade in the heat of the day. Ideally this type of garden had colonnades
on all four sides. There are many examples of these, however, also examples where space
was more limited where the colonnade is on two or three sides only. A colonnaded peristyle
was a status symbol, indicating wealth and culture. In the garden, as in the atrium, columns
(the more the better) transported family and guests to a world of luxury and monumentality. [6]

Water for the garden

Late in the late first century BCE the emperor Augustus built an aqueduct to bring fresh water
to the settlements around the bay of Naples. Surprisingly, this private water supply was not
directed to kitchens or toilets, but was largely reserved for the atrium, domestic bath and the
garden. This caused a revolution in garden design, and fountains became a major feature. This
ornamental use of water became a display of wealth and status. It also showed the benefits of
the new imperial order and the first emperor, as other ordinary citizens still used wells and
pumps. In some houses there were actually stops and valves that allowed water to be switched
from one function to another. [7]
 Garden for House of Loreius Tiburtinus, Pompeii (image courtesy of Google.sites)

In the famous garden of The House of Decimus Octavius Quartio (also known as the House of
Loreius Tiburtinus), there was an extensive water system that included pools, and channels
used as a cooling backdrop for the outdoor dining area, and then also an extensive
watercourse running the length of the large garden. Pergolas for vines can also be seen at the
above House of Loreius Tiburtinus. Ornamental fountains and spouts made of bronze and
marble came in many shapes and sizes. There were elegant and simple basins. Water sprayed
from the mouth of a peacock, a rabbit and many mythological creatures.

Not all fountains were made of stone or bronze. Several spouts were found that were made in
a bluish glazed pottery like material known as faience, including the crocodile and the frog.
Faience ornaments were made in Egypt, an indicator of the thriving trading circles of the time.
In addition to the status of these elements, they also add an element of playfulness and humor
to the gardens area of rest, play and beauty. Other ornamental and even philosophic elements
were added via sculpture. Even oscilla ornaments suspended on garlands between columns
added garden decoration. Formal gardens of the elite in Pompeii feature many practical and
beautiful objects in addition to fountains, including beautiful benches and bronze and marble
sculpture. The sculptures were usually statues of gods, poets, philosophers, and historical
figures typically from the Greek world.

Wall paintings or mural frescoes

One of the most interesting and memorable aspects of the Pompeii gardens was their common
use of painted murals (wallpaintings are often frescoes) as a backdrop on the walls behind.
They are often gorgeous focal points that draw the eye and transport the viewer to perhaps
another place and time. Sometimes they also extended the view, making the garden feel
larger.

The strongest impression given by Roman wall painting when seen on the spot at Pompeii is
an unexpected lavishness. After the reserve of the street faade, the painted interiors had a
palatial air, all the most striking for the sparseness of the furnishings; and beyond in the
courtyard, more bright, bold scenes and decorations stretched round the walls behind the
colonnade; although now broken and faded, these must have been splendidly effective when
fresh and seen in combination with garden, fountains, statuary, sunlight and people. [8]
Sometimes these wall paintings are even of imaginary gardens.
Detail of Roman garden wallpainting from the House of the Golden Bracelets, Pompeii (Image
in public domain)

A number of the paintings show their intense interest in nature especially surrounded by
urban life as well as historic events set in landscapes. Particularly memorable are the large
paintings that often plaster the whole back walls of garden areas. Traces of the painted foliage
and other garden features on the wall of one home, merges the real and imaginary. Sometimes
a painted fence, fountain, fish, birds, often too large for the actual garden, would be painted.
These paintings can also contain information about what plants and animals might have
populated ancient gardens. Some were idealized and intended only as fantasy; that does not
diminish their beauty or lessen their impact but instead underscores the sophistication of
Roman aesthetics.

The many gardens of Pompeii had never been fully studied botanically until the work of
Wilhelmina Jashemski in the 1960s and 1970s. [9] Jashemski, was a Maryland professor of
ancient history and a Pompeian archeologist, who helped establish the academic field of
garden archaeology. Although Roman law was her specialty, she was interested in Roman
gardens, in part because she was a gardener herself. (Her own home was surrounded by
hundreds of azaleas and other flowering plants and trees.) [10] She made plaster casts of root
cavities to identify plants, examined soil contours to reveal planting beds and irrigation
channels, and analyzed floral and faunal remains. [11] She discovered that gardens were an
integral part of everyday life in the ancient town and with a bit of green space, families could
grow figs, olives, cherries and other fruits and vegetables. The range of plants that could be
grown with success increased dramatically with time and the increase in water availability.

Formal gardens were essentially green gardens, planted with evergreens beautiful year
round: laurel, acanthus, myrtle, oleander, box, ivy and rosemary. [12] This strikes me as very
similar to what we plan in our Mediterranean gardens, in a similar climate here on the Newport
Beach California Coast today. These gardens usually had carefully arranged geometric
flowerbeds, and footpaths running in between them. The beds were bordered with fences
made of reed, and were planted with cypress bushes and roses, with other ornamental and
flowering plants along the edges. Perhaps even a few onions, herbs and cabbages were
tucked in between the formality. [13] Flowers in season added accent such as roses, lilies and
violets. Many gardens, less formal in nature, were planted with trees (hazel, fig and peach) and
vines and herbs. Some plant species we recognize as ornamental also represented a sort of
home pharmacy; Wormwood, Juniper, Roses and the garland plants, which were used to
make wreaths for the gods, were also medicinal plants. [14] Ancient Pompeii was apparently
famous for its flower culture, as it still is today: commercial growers produce cut flowers and
seed. [15] In antiquity, flowers were grown for making garlands and perfume or ointment. [16]
Sometimes these gardens were also the homes of small pets including the popular turtle, dog
and doves.

As interesting and different as life in 79 CE must have been from our own today, it was
surprising to find how similar the gardens of then are to those of Mediterranean style today.
Even though I think they may have focused more on their gardens at that ancient time in
history, we in southern, California, unlike other parts of the country, have this similar mindset.
The Pompeian garden historian, Wilhelmina Jashemski says it best in an interview with the
Washington Post: I was struck by the tragedy of Pompeiis demise but also by lifes continuity,
by tools and techniques still in use today. Life she said, is still much the same. Did you know
I have never found a garden in Pompeii that did not have a dog? [17] Jashemski also wrote
in her journals, Vine covered pergolas were not a monopoly of the rich. There were few
houses with no garden, but it is touching to discover that a neighbor who had a large garden,
at times, cut a window in the wall that separated the two houses so that the poor family might
enjoy the view of their neighbors spacious garden. [18]

Notes:

[1] Wilhelmina Jashemski and F.G. Meyer, eds., The Natural History of Pompeii. Cambridge
University Press, 2002, ed. 82-3

[2] Jashemski, 84-5

[3] Paul Roberts, Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Oxford University Press.
2013, 148.

[4] Patrick Hunt, Pompeii, Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History. Penguin/Plume, 2007,
113, 129; Patrick Hunt, Persian Paradise Gardens: Eden and Beyond as Chart-Bagh in Gifts
of Persia, July 11, 2011, Garden Conservancy Event at Ebell Center, Los Angeles, Electrum
Magazine, July, 2011.

[5] Roberts, 148

[6] Roberts, 151

[7] Roberts, 154

[8] Nathaniel Harris, History of Ancient Rome. Octopus Publishing Group Limited. 2000, 172

[9] Joanne Berry, The Complete Pompeii. Thames & Hudson Inc. 2007
[10] Joe Holley, Pompeian Historian Wilhemina Jashemski, Washington Post. Monday,
January 12, 2008.

[11] Berry, 180

[12] J. J. Dobbins and Pedar Foss, The World of Pompeii. Routledge, 2008, 496.

[13] Mary Beard. The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found. The Belknap Press of
Harvard University. 2008, 87.

[14] Marisa Ranieri Panetta, Pompeii: The History, Life and Art of the Buried City. White Star
Publishers. 2004, 310.

[15] Dobbins and Foss, 496

[16] ibid.

[17] Holley, 2008

[18] Dobbins and Foss, 488