In the same vault bronze candelabra and other articles, jewels and coins were found. Amphoræ were also found ranged against the wall, in some of which the contents, dried and hardened by time, were still preserved. Archæologists, it is said, pretend to recognize in this substance the flavor of the rich strong wine for which the neighborhood of Vesuvius is celebrated.
Besides the interior garden within the portico, there must have been another garden extending along the southern side of the house. The passage from the peristyle, 7, the position of the elliptic chamber, 16, and the trellis work, Q, with its spacious steps, leave no doubt on this subject. It has been stated in a German periodical that traces of the plowshare have been distinguished in the fields adjoining this villa. This is the only authority we have for supposing that the process of excavation has been extended at all beyond the house itself. The garden to the south is still, to the best of our information, uncleared, nor is it likely that it contains objects of sufficient interest to recompense the labor which would be consumed in laying it open. Our limited knowledge of ancient horticulture is not therefore likely to be increased by means of Pompeii; for such small flower-pots as are attached to houses within the town can not contain anything worth notice beyond a fountain or a summer triclinium.
We will do our best, however, to complete the reader's notion of an Italian villa, and show what might have been, since we can not show what has been here, by borrowing Pliny's account of the garden attached to his Tuscan villa, the only account of a Roman garden which has come down to us.
"In front of the house lies a spacious hippodrome, entirely open in the middle, by which means the eye, upon your first entrance, takes in its whole extent at one view. It is encompassed on every side with plane trees covered with ivy, so that while their heads flourish with their own green, their bodies enjoy a borrowed verdure; and thus the ivy twining round the trunk and branches, spreads from tree to tree and connects them together. Between each plane tree are placed box trees, and behind these, bay trees, which blend their shade with that of the planes. This plantation, forming a straight boundary on both sides of the hippodrome, bends at the further end into a semi-circle, which, being set round and sheltered with cypresses, casts a deeper and more gloomy shade; while the inward circular walks (for there are several) enjoying an open exposure, are full of roses, and correct the coolness of the shade by the warmth of the sun.