XII. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of Gardening in European Turkey, including Greece and Albania
526. Of gardening, in what is now European Turkey, when that country was under the Romans, nothing is known. The Roman taste would probably pass to Byzantium when the seat of empire was removed thither by Constantino; but as to its history, during the period that the rest of Europe was enveloped in ignorance and superstition, very little has been recorded. The numerous Greek authors on rural matters (Geo- ponici), who wrote between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries, do little more than copy Columella and other Latin georgical writers; they mention very few plants as ornamental, and treat chiefly of agriculture, vineyards, and poultry.
