277 



BOOK XV. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FRUIT-TREES. 



CHAF. 1 . (1.) THE OLIVE. HOW LONG IT EXISTED ONLY IN GREECE. 



AT WHAT PERIOD IT WAS EIRST INTRODUCED INTO ITALY, SPAIN, 

 AND AFRICA. 



Theophrastf/s, 1 one of the most famous among the Greek 

 writers, who flourished about the year 440 of the City of 

 Rome has asserted that the olive 1 * does not grow at a distance 

 of more than forty 2 miles from the sea. Fenestella tells us 

 that in the year of Rome 173, being the reign of Tarquinms 

 Priscus, it did not exist in Italy, Spain, or Africa; 3 whereas 

 at the present day it has crossed the Alps even, and has been 

 introduced into the two provinces of Gaul and the middle of 

 Spain. In the year of Rome 505, Appius Claudius, grandson 

 of Appius Claudius Ccecus, and L. Junius being consuls, twelve 

 pounds of oil sold for an as ; and at a later period, in the year 

 680 M Seius, son of Lucius, the curule sedile, regulated the 

 price of olive oil at Rome, at the rate of ten pounds for the as, 

 for the whole year. A person will be the less surprised at 

 this when he learns that twenty-two years after, in the third 

 consulship of Cn. Pompeius, Italy was able to export olive oil 

 to the provinces. 



Hesiod, 4 who looked upon an acquaintance with agriculture 



i Hist. Plant, iv. c. . 



i* The Olea Europaea of Linnaeus. See B. xxi. c. di. 



2 This has not been observed to be the fact. It has been known to 

 srrow in ancient Mesopotamia, more than one hundred leagues from the sea 



3 It is supposed that it is indigenous to Asia, whence it was introduced 

 into Africa and the South of Europe. There is little doubt that long 

 before the period mentioned by Pliny, it was grown m Africa by the Car- 

 thaginians, and in the South of Gaul, at the colony of Massilia. 



4°This work of Hesiod is no longer in existence ; but the assertion is 

 exaggerated, even if he alludes to the growth of the tree from seed. * ee 

 remarks that a man who "has sown the olive at twenty, may gather excel- 

 lent fruit before he arrives at old age. It is more generally propagated 

 by slips or sets. If the trunk is destroyed by accident, the roots will throw 

 out fresh suckers. 



