The Horti Liciniani were a set of gardens in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, originally belonging to the gens Licinia, and which in the third century were owned by the Emperor Gallienus

Gallienus

Gallienus was Roman Emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260, and alone from 260 to 268. He took control of the Empire at a time when it was undergoing great crisis...

, himself a member of the gens

Gens

In ancient Rome, a gens , plural gentes, referred to a family, consisting of all those individuals who shared the same nomen and claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a stirps . The gens was an important social structure at Rome and throughout Italy during the...

. The gardens were probably on the Esquiline Hill

Esquiline Hill

The Esquiline Hill is one of the celebrated Seven Hills of Rome. Its southern-most cusp is the Oppius .-Etymology:The origin of the name Esquilino is still under much debate. One view is that the Hill was named after the abundance of holm-oaks, exculi, that resided there...

, at the top of which Gallienus erected a colossal statue of himself The 4th-century domed nymphaeum

Nymphaeum

A nymphaeum or nymphaion , in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs....

 that survives, long miscalled a "Temple of Minerva Medica

Temple of Minerva Medica (nymphaeum)

The nymphaeum called the Temple of Minerva Medica is a ruin of late Imperial Rome, between the via Labicana and Aurelian Walls and just inside the line of the Anio Vetus. Once part of the Horti Liciniani on the Esquiline Hill, it now faces the modern Via Giolitti...

", seems to have been part of the gardens.