EUROPEAN OLIVE-TREE. 377 
" Again he seat forth the dove out of the ark : and the dove came 
in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouih was an olive leaf plucki off." 
Genesis viii. 10, 11. 
That the olive was anciently very much esteemed by the Hebrews, is evident 
from the parable of Jotham, " The trees went forth on a time to appoint a 
king," &c. ; and David, also, seems to have considered this tree as a blessing, 
when he says, " Thy children, like the olive branches round about thy table; 
Lo ! thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord." 
The ancient Greeks appear to have thought no less of the olive and of its fruit, 
than the Israelites ; and the great duration of the tree is apparent from the his- 
tory of one in the Acropolis at Athens. Dr. Clarke, in his "Travels," in speak- 
ing of the temple of Pandrosus says, " Within this building, so late as the second 
century, was preserved the olive-tree mentioned by Apollodorus, which was said 
to be as old as the foundation of the citadel." A contribution of olives was given 
by all the Greeks who attended the Panathe?uea, a festival held at Athens in 
honour of Minerva. Those who excelled in any of the games during this festival, 
were crowned with a wreath of olives, which grew in the grove of Academus, 
a place near the city, with spacious and shady walks, belonging to a man of that 
name. 
The olive, it is said, was first planted in Italy, in the thirteenth year of the 
reign of Servius Tullius, the Vlth king of Rome ; and during the reign of Tar- 
quinius Priscus, which was about the one hundred and eighty-third year from the 
foundation of that city, there were no olive-trees, either in Italy, Spain, or Africa, 
a strong presumption that they grew originally only in Syria. Theophrastus 
states that, in the four hundred and fortieth year of the city, there were no 
olive-trees in Italy, except on the coast, and within forty miles of the sea ; but 
Pliny says, in his time, they were to be found in the very heart of France and 
Spain, and that the olives of Syria, although smaller, produced the best oil. He 
also informs us, that in the five hundredth year of the city, when Appius Clau- 
dius and L. Junius were consuls together, a pound of oil was sold for twelve 
asses ; that in the year 680, ten pounds sold for one ass ; and that in twenty-two 
years after that time, Italy was able to furnish the provinces with oil; and that 
it was much used by the Romans at their baths, possessing, as they supposed, 
the property of warming the body, and defending it against the cold. \ lrgil 
speaks of but three kinds of olives. Columella mentions ten varieties, and says 
he believes they were much more numerous. 
As the wood of the olive-tree is very compact and durable, it is not surprising 
that it should furnish instances of extraordinary longevity. "In comparative 
youth," says a writer in the "North American Review," "the stem increases in 
diameter only at the rate of an eighth of an inch in a year. Therefore, the olive 
at Pescio, mentioned by De Candolle, having a trunk of twenty-four feet in girth, 
should be seven hundred years old; even supposing it to have grown, through- 
out, at the ordinary rate for young trees; while the still larger tree at Beauheu, 
near Nice, described by Risso, and recently measured by Berthelot, doubtless the 
oldest of the race in Europe, should be more than a thousand years old. Although 
now in a state of decrepitude, it still bears an abundant crop of fruit, or at least 
did so, as late as the year 1828. It is not improbable, therelore, that those eight 
venerable trees, which yet survive upon the Mount of Olives, may have been in 
existence, as tradition asserts, at the time of our Saviour's passion. Mr. Loudon 
mentions some plantations of olive-trees, in Italy, at Term, which he passed 
through, in 1819, on his way to the Falls of Marmora, that were supposed to 
have existed from the time of Plin y. 
Mythological and Legendary Allusions. The olive has been the emblem oi 
peace among all nations; perhaps, because the olive-leal, brought by the dove to 
Noah in the ark, was the first sign which he received oi peace restored between 
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