Gaius Maecenas
Roman gardens were a place of peace and solitude, a refuge from urban life. Gaius Maecenas, a culturally influential confidante of the emperor Augustus, built the first private garden estate of Rome to fulfill his creative ambitions and restore his delicate health. Seneca the Younger characterized the gardens' immersive blend of art, nature, and water as having "diverted his worried mind with the sound of rippling waters."