BOOK XV. VI. 22-vii. 25 



possible coniplete cleanlincss niay be produced. It 

 was a later discovery, he says, to wash the olives in 

 absolutely boiHng water, ancl at once put theni whole 

 into the press — for that method crushes out the lees 

 — and then to crush them in oil-mills and put them 

 under the press a second time. People do not 

 approve of pressing more than a hundred pecks of 

 olives at a time : this is called a * batch,' and what is 

 squeezed out first after the millstone is called the 

 * flower.' It is a fair amount for three batches to be 

 pressed in tw enty-four hours by gangs of four men 

 using a double holder." 



\'II. At that time there was no artificial oil, and Artxficiai 

 that I take to be the reason why Cato says nothing fomuo^'^ 

 about it. At the present time there are severaUf<i'f«a'»^ 

 varieties of it ; and we will treat first of those kinds t^eT ^ 

 which are produced from trees, and among them 

 before all from the wild oUve. It is a thin oil, and 

 has a much more bitter flavour than the oil obtained 

 from the cultivated oHve, and it is only useful for 

 medicines. Very closely resembling this oil is the 

 oil obtained from the ground-oUve, a rock shrub not 

 rnore than three inches high, with leaves and fruit 

 Uke those of the wild oUve. The next class of oil is 

 that obtained from the cici,'' a tree growing in great 

 abundance in Egypt — others call it the croton, others 

 sibi, others wild sesame — and there, as weU as not 

 long ago in Spain also, it grows wild, shooting up as 

 high as an oUve-tree, with a stalk Uke that of the 

 fennel, the leaf of a vine, and a seed-pod Uke a 

 slender grape of a pale colour : our countrymen caU 

 it the tick, from the resemblance of the seed-pod to 

 that insect. It is boiled in water and the oil floating 

 on the surface is skimmed off. But in Egypt, where 



305 



