Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil 



equally fatal to the olives whether they were planted 

 among vines or not. It is clear that Palladius 

 understood the passage in the only possible sense. 



The crook on which the shepherd leans (Ec. viii. 16) 

 is of the wild olive, for the word in Theocritus, whom 

 Virgil followed, is aypieXaiw. It may well be doubted 

 whether, when the poem was written, Virgil had yet 

 seen an olive. There cannot have been any near 

 Mantova. 



Flower, July and August. 

 Italian name, Oleastro. 



Oliva, or Olea. 



' pingues . . . olivae ' (Ge. ii. 85). 

 ' pallenti . . . olivae ' (Ec. v. 16). 



Of all Italian trees the olive (Olea sativa) was 

 naturally held of most account, and could be called 

 'the tree' without qualification, as in Horace's 

 ' arbore nunc aquas culpante.' It is a cultivated 

 variety of O. Europaea, which perhaps has no 

 native claim to its specific designation. Its Latin 

 names probably came from the Greek iXala, the 

 form ' oliva ' from a dialect in which the digamma 

 was still spoken, and ' olea ' from one from which 

 the digamma had disappeared. This seems to 

 point to a somewhat late introduction into Italy, 

 and it may have been brought by the earliest Greek 

 colonists. The tree is too tender to grow at high 

 altitudes or, except on warm coastlands, in the north 

 of Italy, and the parts in which it flourishes are 

 known as the region of the olive. 



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