Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Topiarius

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

TOPIA'RIUS. A fancy gardener; a slave whose particular province it was to attend to the opus topiarium (Cic. Q. Fr. iii. 1. 2. Plin. H. N. xv. 39.), which comprised the culture and training of trees and shrubs, the decoration of arbours and bowers, and the forming of evergreens by pruning and clipping into a variety of incongruous and fanciful forms, representing birds, beasts, &c., like those so prevalent in the Dutch gardens of the last century. Cic. Par. v. 2. Plin. Ep. iii. 19. 3.