Public Lecture

Abstract:
When the Roman general Lucullus returned home to Rome in 66 B.C. after having spent the last six years in the East, defeating two great kings and having added several new provinces to the realm of Rome, he was expecting a triumph. Instead he was met with trials, political isolation and, to top it off, a divorce. Lucullus, bitter, stubborn and stuck outside of Rome awaiting his “triumphant return”, would spend his enormous wealth, to his allies dismay, not on regaining his position within the political elite, but instead to construct an enormous garden, the Horti Luculliani. The Luculliani would be the first of the large urban gardens of Rome and would spawn a series of permulti imitatores that would eventually, after many changes, result in the many public parks and gardens that we have today. This lecture will cover the gardens that came before the Luculliani, how Lucullus and Rome came in contact with these garden cultures, the construction and content of the Horti Luculliani and finally a short exploration of how the ancient Horti Luculliani is intimately connected with the public park surrounding the Villa Borghese in modern Rome.