In the eleventh instalment of the Peopling the Past video series, Dr. Victoria Austen discusses gardens and gardening in the Roman world, including the types of gardens and what was grown, the structure and decoration of garden space, and the sources we have for understanding gardening in the Roman household.
Dr. Victoria Austen is a lecturer in Classics at the University of Winnipeg, and the Communications Officer for the Women’s Network of the Classical Association of Canada. In September 2022, she will take up the position of Oden Postdoctoral Fellow in Innovation in the Humanities at Carleton College. Her research primarily focuses on intersection of literature and material culture in the analysis of Roman gardens and landscapes; and she is currently working on her first monograph, ‘The Boundaries of the Roman Garden: (Re)Framing the Hortus)’, to be published by Bloomsbury Academic Press.
Interested in learning more? Check out these resources by Dr. Austen:
Austen, V. 2020. “Columella’s Prose Preface: A Paratextual Reading of De Re Rustica Book 10’” Syllecta Classica 31: 95–122.
Endless Knot Podcast, Episode 91, ‘Roman Gardens, with Victoria Austen’
A Descriptive Transcript for this video can be found HERE.
Further Reading
Jashemski, W.F. 1979. The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, Vol. 1. New Rochelle, NY.
Idem. 1993. The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius: Appendices, Vol. 2. New Rochelle, NY.
Jashemski, W. F., and F. G. Meyer, eds. 2002. A Natural History of Pompeii. Cambridge.
Jashemski, W F., K. Gleason, K. Hartswick, and A. Malek, eds. 2018. Gardens of the Roman Empire. Cambridge.
von Stackelberg, K. T. 2009. The Roman Garden: Space, Sense and Society. London.
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