Rome and the Literature of Gardens explores the garden as a powerful focus of transformation and transgression in the De Re Rustica of Columella, the Satires of Horace, the Annals of Tacitus, and the Confessions of Saint Augustine. In keeping with the approach of this series, a concluding chapter examines the reincarnation of these expressions in the contemporary plays Arcadia and The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard.

Many books on gardens in ancient Rome concentrate on either technical agricultural manuals, or pastoral poetry, or the physical remains of Roman gardens. Instead, this book considers images of gardens from a kaleidoscope of genres, especially those that the Romans made their own: satire, annalistic history, and autobiography. This atypical approach makes a unique contribution to the field of Latin literature and garden history, bridging the gap between material culture and cultural history.