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David's Flower Guide
This is an extract from the soon to be released book "Edible Plants of Crete" by David Lyne-Gordon.
OLIVE (Olea europaea)
"There are two liquids especially agreeable to the human body, wine inside and oil outside" (Pliny the Younger).
Legend has it that the olive was first cultivated by Hermes, the Greeks say it was Aristaeus and the Egyptians give the honour to Mercurius Trimegistus. However, it was the goddess Athena who created the first olive tree during her fight with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. Greek coins of 440BC depict the two symbols of Athena, a sprig of olive and an owl.
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Wherever it first originated the wild olive entered the food chain as early as 3,000BC in the Aegean and it was quickly tamed by Cretans who developed the earliest commercial production, processing and export of both the fruit and its oil. At the Cretan Palace of Knossos the oil storage capacity of the 400 jars found there has been calculated to be 62,000 gallons!
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In Crete, the olive tree and its fruit were closely connected to mythology and the ancient gods. The same applies to its leaves, which were used as a symbol of victory, wisdom and peace all over the world.
"At Athens they say that the sacred olive branch sprouted in a single day, became bigger and then quickly contracted again" (On Marvellous Things Heard:153).
Solon (639-559BC) passed the first law for the prevention of shortages and the protection of the olive tree by prohibiting all exports of other oils. Sophocles (496?406BC), the great dramatist, praised the Athenian olive in his 'Oedepus epi Kolono' (literally meaning self?sprung from the earth). Hippocrates was among the first to recognise the therapeutic value of olive oil. Plato founded his Academy in an olive grove near the river Ilissos at Keramikos and today there exists a tree bearing a metal plate which reads 'Elea tou Platonis' (Plato's olive tree), which is reputed to be an original tree from the classical grove. Around 354BC Aristotle made the first scientific study of the cultivation of the olive.
Eurotas, a Laconian river was reportedly lined with olives. Ismarus, a mountain in Thrace and Taburnus, a mountain in Campania were renowned for their crop, the Aegean island of Syrus was rich in these succulent fruits and the Crisean plains. The Ionian island of Cephalene (Cephallenia) was famous for its flavour some oil. Spain became a major producer only in the 10th Century and it was from there that Britain obtained its supplies at that time, though merchants at Tintagel in Cornwall had been exchanging oil for tin and slaves as early at the 5th Century.
According to Fenestella there were no olive trees in Italy, Spain or Africa before the reign of Tarquinius Priscus in 581BC, but at the time he was writing they had spread across the Alps and into the heartland of Gaul and Spain. In 197AD Gallic olive farmers who had supported Governor Clodius Albinus, lost their estates after he was arrested for treason. Oil was a major source of revenue to the Greek state and in 157BC the price had reached 10 denarii per amphora. In Rome the price in 249BC was 10 as for 12lb, dropping to 10 as for 10lb in 74BC. Attica started exporting its oil in 500BC and started trading with Greece in the 2nd Century BC. Cato (234?149BC) tells us that he paid 2 denarii for 12 pints.
When Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius annexed Sufetula (Subaytilah in Tunisia) and made it a colony, he had by the 2nd Century AD made it one of the major olive producers and by the 4th Century it was the biggest exporter in the Roman world. It was thought to be inferior to other oils and was therefore used only in lamps. Roman occupied Palestine also exported oil in the 1st Century AD. Pompeiian olive oil jars have been found stamped with words 'Quality strained juice'. Marcus Cato mentions six varieties ? Sallentine, Orchites, Pausean, Sergian, Colminian and Licinian.
Columella mentions several varieties including the Pausean, Orchites, Royal, Naevian, Shuttle?olive, Licinian, Culminian and Calabrian. Apart from farming hints and techniques, Columella also relates many interesting recipes using olives and other food plants that he cultivated. The Licinian olive he said was used to prepare Venafram Oil in a small Campanian town near Arpinum, and it was this oil that Juvenal refers to in 'Satire V', "the host souses his fish with Venafran oil...", suggesting that it was better that than offered to his guests.
He also tells us that the olive was sacred to Pallas Athena, Minerva and Zeus. Virgil tells us that they were mainly harvested in September, but in his work 'Priapae' he gives us this "the olive, when wrinkled by winter's cold" is picked during a frost. After picking and drying they were crushed and ground in a device called the trapetum. He also gives us the names of varieties - Orchites and Posian from Sergian, Radius from Sallentine and the Caminian.
Olives and olive trees were not only cultivated for their culinary uses but also as a source of material for religious, sports and military purposes. Fires of olive wood were burned to celebrate the Festival of Parilia on April 24th . Wild olive wreaths were presented to victors at the Olympic Games and a jar of Attic oil was presented at the Panathenian Games in 546BC. Roman cavalry squadrons were crowned with olive wreaths on the Ides of July 15th and when celebrating minor triumphs. Pliny the Younger wrote that some Greek gymnasium proprietors were found guilty of selling the oil scraped off men's bodies to the public. Before they were found out they had made 80,000 sesterces out of the disgusting trade.
Today there are three types cultivated: two for the table (the large 'queens' and the small 'manzanillas') and a bitter green variety for its highly flavoured oil.
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