Antiquity and Middle Ages

The roses are grown in China and Persia 5000 years and Greece since the Bronze Age.
Ancient literature and poetry often refer to the pink without it is easy to identify the species or variety with certainty.
Herodotus records that King Midas in the sixth century BC. BC, when it was driven from Lydia by Persian armies, won his roses in his exile in Macédoine6. And Greek naturalist Theophrastus described a rose many petals, a form of Rosa canina, cultivated in gardens. It describes the red, pink and white roses, and notes the fragrance of the rose of Cyrene.
Pliny the Elder in his Natural History describes twenty kinds of roses named by the name of their place of origin. Their descriptions allow suggestions identification7:
the pink Praeneste seems Rosa gallica versicolor;
Pink Campania is a form of Rosa × alba semiplena;
the pink Tachys is a form of rosa damascena;
the red rose of Miletus ten petals is a variety of Rosa gallica;
The Pink Pangea is another Rosa gallica;
the pink is a Alabanda Rosa × alba;
Fall rose like Rosa sempervirens;
Rosa is Spinolea pimpinellifolia Myriacantha;
Rosa gallica officinalis is then the source of rose essence that the Romans used in large quantities as the petals. They make wreaths and garlands of petals strewn on the ground and fill cushions. At banquets, if a rose is suspended tribute to Harpocrates, the god of silence, guests must keep secret the words exchanged "under the rose" 8. The Romans used such quantity that the culture of the rose is an economically important activity locally and Rome is also important for boat roses of Egypt (which is then the most important export to Rome), Carthage and Cyrenaica (now Libya). The Paestum Rose sung by Virgil is probably R. damascena rose and Campani, R. alba.
Thus the life century BC. BC to the second century, during this period of Greek and Latin rule, the flow of Persian roses in England, Greece, Egypt.
In the Middle Ages as to the ancient period, the rose is very present in the secular and religious society, but the data do not allow precise identification: the sixth century, convents grow roses, King Childebert I have a rose (roses Paradise after Bishop Fortunat) in its domain to Saint-Germain-des-Prés9. And in the eighth century, Charlemagne Capitulaire From Villis quotes roses among the plants to grow. In the twelfth century on the eve of the Crusades, Albert the Great note as cultivated roses Rosa rubiginosa, Rosa canina, Rosa arvensis and Rosa × alba.
During this first phase of domestication and use of indigenous roses, roses are multiplied by suckers and cuttings. Introductions of new taxa were limited to major trade routes, step by step: China Eastern to Central China, East Middle East and the Middle East to Europe. The changes have certainly played an important role such as mossy nature of R. centifolia or intensity of color R. gallica, the transformation of stamens into petals (duplicature).