a a a 
INTRODUCTORY. 1% 
over the coast of Africa, while on the opposite side of the great sea 
if stretched along the shores of France and Spain! and through the 
Pillars of Hercules, along the coast of Portugal, and as far north as 
to the Channel, with its islands and comparatively favorable climate. 
There can be no doubt that to all these places the fig tree was carried 
in many varieties at a very early date, even previous to the introdue- 
tion of the fig into Greece and Italy proper. 
The real history of the fig industry begins after the introduction of 
the fig into the Mediterranean region outside of Asia, and particularly 
into Greece. Historical references are few and far between. The tree 
and its fruit constituted at first merely a luxury for the rich. Later, 
mention of the fig becomes frequent, and not merely as a luxury 
during the ripening period, but as an important article of diet for the 
people during the winter months. 
The time of the first introduction of the fig into Europe is very 
uncertain. In the Homerie songs, the oldest European literature 
extant, the fig is hardly mentioned. In the Iliad, describing the 
Trojan war, the greatest national undertaking of the Greeks, no 
reference to the fig is found. In the Odyssey, describing the wander- 
ings of Odysseus after this war, the fig is mentioned three times. In 
the part descriptive of the agonies of Tantalus in the lower world 
we read how in vain he tried to reach the fruits almost within his 
grasp, “‘pomegranates, pears, apples, sweet figs, and dark olives.’’? 
The composition of the Homeric songs is generally conceded to have 
been accomplished before the ninth century before Christ, but later 
investigations make it probable that the verses mentioning the fig 
in the Odyssey are interpolations of much later date. Hesiod, who 
lived in the ninth century and after Homer, has nothing to say about 
the fig. The earliest mention of undoubted genuineness is by the poet 
Archilochus, who lived about seven hundred years before ourera. He 
tells about the fig being cultivated on the Greek island of Paros, and 
there greatly contributing to the enjoyment of life. The introduc- 
tion of the fig in Greece must, therefore, have occurred some time in 
the eighth century before Christ, and undoubtedly it then came from 
the Semitic nations across from Palestine and Asia Minor. Later on 
Attika and Sikyon, the latter place named after ‘‘syke” (fig), had 
become famous for their excellent figs, the origin of which was attrib- 
uted to the goddess Ceres (Demeter), who caused the fig tree to 
spring up at Phykalos as a reward for the hospitality extended to her 
by the inhabitants of the place. 
The cultivation of the fig soon extended all over Greece, and the 
fig gradually became an important article of diet of both poor and 
'Mooers, vol. 11, 512, and Meltzer, I, p. 37. Gades, the present Cadiz, founded 
ear ier than 1100 before Christ. 
2Od., 7. 115, 116; A. 589; 7. 120-121; w. 339-340; w. 245. 
