Pliny’s Natural History and the Flavian Templum Pacis: Botanical Imperialism in First-Century c.e . Rome

The gardens in the first-century c.e . Flavian Templum Pacis are best understood as formal colonial botanical gardens populated with exotic flora of the type catalogued by Pliny in his Natural History. These gardens, along with the spice market (Horrea Piperataria) located next to the Templum Pacis on the Sacred Way in the center of Rome, were monumental statements of imperial power over the world as the Romans knew it. Both the transplantation to and the sacred offering within the Templum Pacis of botanicals that Romans acquired through conquest in the east and long-distance trade with India were ways to assert ideological and economic power within the Indo-Mediterranean network of exchange.