PRIMA ARBORUM 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OLIVE-TREE AND ITS FRUIT. 



Olea prima omnium arborum est. — columella. 



SAMUEL RAE & CO. 



Historical Notes. 



THE olive is supposed to have been 

 introduced into Italy about the year 

 550 B. c. The ancients had a special 

 veneration for this useful tree, which, 

 according to mythology, sprang from 

 the earth at the command of Minerva 

 and was held sacred to this deity. L. 

 Junius Moderatus Columella, who wrote 

 on agriculture in the early years of the 

 Christian era, calls it ''the chief of all 

 trees." 



Linnaeus named the olive olea eiiropcea 

 and considered it to have been indige- 

 nous to Europe and Africa ; while other 

 writers attribute its origin to Asia, 

 whence it is supposed to have been 

 brought to Attica, about i 5^6 b. c, by 

 Cecrops, who also taught his subjects 

 to cultivate it. Pliny says that the ol- 

 ive was not known in Italy, Spain, or 

 Africa in the time of the first Tarquin. 



At first its cultivation would appear 

 to have spread slowly in Italy, for under 

 the consulate of Appius Claudius and 

 Lucius Junius, about 248 b. c, olive oil 

 must have been an article of luxury in 

 Rome, selling as it did at twelve asses 

 the libra; hut one hundred and eighty 

 years later it had fallen to a tenth of its 

 former value, a sign that the production 

 must then have been large ; while un- 

 der the fourth consulate of Pompey, 

 Rome exported olive oil to her subject 

 provinces. 



TheEtruscans, during their independ- 

 ence, do not appear to have cultivated 

 the olive, for they are said to have im- 

 ported olive oil from Greece. 



Lucca and Populonia, the latter an ex- 

 tinct Etruscan city which was situated 

 near the present town of Piombino, are 

 mentioned as the localities in Tuscany 

 where the olive was first planted. Li- 

 guria is said to have been the last region 



