"At Pompeii not only public buildings and shops have been preserved, but hundreds of houses and gardens. There was at least one garden in almost every house, while some houses had three or four. The garden was an integral part of the house and a significant factor in its development. Only at Pompeii can domestic architecture be traced for a period of almost four hundred years. Pompeii preserves examples of the early Italic house with the garden at the rear, houses that date back to the late fourth or early third century They remind us that the hortus is old; it formed a significant part of the primitive heredium ("hereditary estate"). The hortus was primarily a kitchen garden, but I suspect that even so the ancient gardener tucked in a few flowers amid in the herbs and vegetables, as does the Italian gardener today."