Chap. 4.] 
riFTEEN YAEIETIES OP OLTTES. 
283 
the variety known as the royal olive, by some called majorina, 
and by others phaiilia this berry being of the ver}^ largest 
size, and yet yielding a minimum of juice. In Egypt, too, 
the berries, which are remarkably meaty, are found to produce 
but very little oil ; while those of Decapolis, in Syria, are so 
extremely small, that they are no bigger than a caper ; and 
yet they are highly esteemed for their flesh.^^ It is for this 
reason that the olives from the parts beyond sea are preferred 
for table to those of Italy, though, at the same time, they are 
very inferior to them for making oil. 
In Italy, those of Picenum and of Sidicina^"^ are considered 
the best for table. These are kept apart from the others and 
steeped in salt, after which, like other olives, they are put in 
amurca, or else boiled wine ; indeed, some of them are left to 
float solely in their own oil,^^ without any adventitious mode 
of preparation, and are then known as colymbades : sometimes 
the berry is crushed, and then seasoned with green herbs to 
flavour it. Even in an unripe state the olive is rendered fit 
for eating by being sprinkled with boiling water ; it is quite 
surprising, too, how readily it will imbibe sweet juices, and 
retain an adventitious flavour from foreign substances. With 
this fruit, as with the grape, there are purple^^ varieties, and 
the posia is of a complexion approaching to black. Besides 
those already mentioned, there are the superba^^ and a remark- 
ably luscious kind, which dries of itself, and is even sweeter 
than the raisin : this last variety is extremely rare, and is to 
5* Probably a member of the variety known to naturalists as the Olea 
fructu majori, carne crassa, of Tournefort, the royal olive or **triparde" of 
the French. The name is thought to be from the Greek ^dyXog, the 
fruit being considered valueless from its paucity of oil. 
There are but few olive-trees in either Egypt or Decapolis at the 
present day, and no attempts are made to extract oil from them. 
" Carnis." He gives this name to the solid part, or pericarp. 
37 See B. iii. c. 9. 
38 These methods are not now adopted for preserving the olive. The 
fruit are first washed in an alkaline solution, and then placed in salt and 
water. The colymbas was so called from K:oXu/x]8aw, to swim," in its 
own oil, namely. Dioscorides descants on the medicinal properties of the 
colymbades. B. i. c. 140. 
36 There are several varieties known of this colour, and more particularly 
the fruit of the Olea atro-rubens of Gouan. 
The Spanish olive, Hardouin says. Fee thinks that the name *' super- 
ba," " haughty," is given figuratively, as meaning rough and austere. 
