The Garden of Hercules for Perfume Manufacturing in Ancient Rome

What you see here is the Garden of Hercules, a very niche home discovered in the southeastern ruins of the Ancient Roman city of Pompeii. What makes it special is the fact that it had a large garden designed specifically for flower-growing, and the remains of small glass bottles, irrigation techniques, and pollen samples suggests that it was a perfumery. This makes the Garden of Hercules the only known commercial flower-growing site in the ancient city.

The Garden of Hercules is so-named for a small statue of the Ancient demigod found near the shrine at the back of the garden (a lararium, where the guardian spirits of the household would have been worshipped), which you can see here. The house that went with the garden was not one of the grandest, but had a courtyard at the entrance that led to the garden at the back. There, the owners grew flowers such as lilies, roses, and violets. These were carefully tended using water partly supplied by irrigation canals. Excavators found an abundance of glass and terracotta containers for preserving the perfumes made from these flowers.

Flowers were important to the Ancient Romans. Besides their use in perfume-making, they were in demand for religious rituals. It is probably not an accident that the Garden of Hercules lies just north of the necropolis of the Nocera Gate, through which was the major funerary grounds of the city (the Romans never buried their dead within their cities, but carefully separated the living from the dead). It makes sense (scents?) that the Garden would have been able to readily supply flowers for funerary rituals.