peristyle-gardens
Contained fruit- and nut-trees, not to mention vines, all grown for food rather than for fancy; but purely ornamental gardens laid out to formal designs certainly existed in the better appointed houses. The more pretentious examples, combining shrubs, fountains, decorative statuettes, and often frescoes on the enclosing walls, reflect the aspiration of the wealthy middle class to import the villa life of Roman aristocrats into their urban homes. Thus the huge wall-paintings of wild animals which overlook many late-Pompeian gardens evoke the game- or safari-parks (paradeisoi) of the nobility, a theme which is also echoed by statuettes of dogs attacking wild boar amid the actual plants and fountains. Some details, such as marble ducks and ibises at the waterside, a bronze fisherman dangling his rod in a fountain, and a sleeping marble pixie amazingly akin to a modern garden gnome, are almost kitsch. The palm for vulgarity should perhaps be awarded to L. Ceius Secundus for commissioning a painting of a nymph who appears to empty her bowl of water into a real gutter in the pavement. (Boardman, 1986)