Olea oleaster
Encyclopedia
Olea oleaster, the wild-olive, has been considered by various botanists a valid species
and a subspecies
of the cultivated olive tree, Olea europea, which is a tree of multiple origins that was domesticated, it now appears, at various places during the fourth and third millennia BCE, in selections drawn from varying local populations. The wild-olive (Ancient Greek kotinos), which ancient Greeks distinguished from the cultivated olive tree (Ancient Greek ἐλάα), was used to fashion the olive wreath
awarded victors at the ancient Olympic games. The ancient and sacred wild-olive tree of Olympia
stood near the Temple of Zeus
, patron of the games.
Today, as a result of natural hybridization and the very ancient domestication and extensive cultivation of the olive throughout the Mediterranean Basin, wild-looking feral forms of olive, called "oleaster
s", constitute a complex of populations, potentially ranging from feral forms to the wild-olive. The wild-olive is a tree of the maquis shrubland
, itself in part the result of the long presence of mankind
.
The drought-tolerant sclerophyll
ous tree is believed to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean Basin
. It still provides the hardy and disease-resistant rootstock on which cultivated olive varieties are grafted.
Aristaeus
, originator of the arts of bee-keeping, cheese-making and other innovations of the most distant past, was he who "first pressed the fruit of the oily wild-olive."
In Odyssey
Book V, when shipwrecked Odysseus
has been cast ashore, he finds a wild-olive that has grown together with a bearing one— inosculated
, an arborist would say— on the Scheria
n seashore, where he crawled
In the fourth century BCE Theophrastus
, the most prominent pupil of Aristotle
, wrote an Enquiry into Plants that stands at the head of the literary tradition of botany
. Modern botanists often struggle to identify the plants named and described by Theophrastus, and modern naming conventions often make spurious links. An example is the modern genus Cotinus, which, though named after the ancient Greek kotinos, is unrelated to the wild-olive.
Theophrastus noted the kinship of wild-olive with the cultivated olive, but his correspondents informed him that no amount of pruning and transplanting could transform kotinos into olea. Through lack of cultivation, he knew, some cultivated forms of olive, pear or fig might run wild, but in the "rare" case where wild-olive was spontaneously transformed to a fruit-bearing one, it was to be classed among portent
s. He noted that wild kinds, such as wild pears and the wild-olive tended to bear more fruits than cultivated trees, though of inferior quality, but that if a wild-olive was topped it might bear a larger quantity of its inedible fruits. He noted that the leaf-buds were opposite.
Timber of the wild-olive was valued: it was proof against decay, and was not affected by shipworm
, which was a valuable feature in ship-building. It also provided stout handles for carpenters' tools.
The ancient wild-olive at Olympia
, from which the victors' wreaths were made, had an aition, or origin myth, that was preserved in the local tradition, though the testament to it that has survived in a fragment is a late one, of the poet Phlegon of Tralles
, who wrote in the second century CE. It appears that in the first five Olympiad
s no victor received a wreath, but before the sixth meeting for the games, the Eleans
, who were hosts at that time, sent their king Iphitos to Delphi
to ask of Apollo
whether wreaths might be awarded. The reply came back:
On his return to Olympia, Iphitos found that one among the grove of wild-olives in the sacred precinct
was wrapped in spider webs. "He walled it round," as A.B. Cook says, "and wreathed the victors from its branches."
An ancient wild-olive tree also gained a talismanic character at Megara
, according to Theophrastus, who noted how the wood of a tree overgrows and buries within its wood a stone placed in a hole made in its trunk:
Heracles
' club was wrenched from a wild-olive tree, which the city of Troezen
claimed as its own, for in the late second-century CE the traveler Pausanias
visited Troezen and recorded an ancient wild-olive with which a local legend was entwined
Theocritus
makes Heracles tell of his contest with the Nemean Lion
:
writers also distinguished the two trees: zayit designates the cultivated olive, the wild-olive being designated in the seventh century BCE Nehemiah 8:15 as eẓ shemen; some modern scholars take this latter term to apply to Elaeagnus angustifolia
, the "Russian-olive".
Paul used the practice common in his day of grafting
cultivated olive scion
s to the hardy rootstock of the wild-olive in an extended simile in Romans 11:17-24, contrasting the wild-olive tree (Gentiles) and the good "natural" olive tree (Israel): For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild-olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree. In the Koine Greek
of the New Testament
the wild-olive has become agrielaios, "of the fields", and the cultivated tree kallielaios, the "fine" one.
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
and a subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
of the cultivated olive tree, Olea europea, which is a tree of multiple origins that was domesticated, it now appears, at various places during the fourth and third millennia BCE, in selections drawn from varying local populations. The wild-olive (Ancient Greek kotinos), which ancient Greeks distinguished from the cultivated olive tree (Ancient Greek ἐλάα), was used to fashion the olive wreath
Olive wreath
The olive wreath also known as kotinos , was the prize for the winner at the ancient Olympic Games. It was an olive branch, of the wild- olive tree that grew at Olympia, intertwined to form a circle or a horse-shoe. According to Pausanias it was introduced by Heracles as a prize for the running...
awarded victors at the ancient Olympic games. The ancient and sacred wild-olive tree of Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...
stood near the Temple of Zeus
Temple of Zeus
The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was an ancient Greek temple in Olympia, Greece, dedicated to the chief of the gods, Zeus. It was the very model of the fully developed classical Greek temple of the Doric order...
, patron of the games.
Today, as a result of natural hybridization and the very ancient domestication and extensive cultivation of the olive throughout the Mediterranean Basin, wild-looking feral forms of olive, called "oleaster
Oleaster
Oleaster, signifying a plant like an olive, but less valuable Oleaster, signifying a plant like an olive, but less valuable Oleaster, signifying a plant like an olive, but less valuable (cf. poetaster, may be applied to:*Feral Olive trees that have been allowed to run wild*Olea oleaster, the...
s", constitute a complex of populations, potentially ranging from feral forms to the wild-olive. The wild-olive is a tree of the maquis shrubland
Maquis shrubland
thumb|220px|Low Maquis in Corsica.220px|thumb|High macchia in Sardinia.Maquis or macchia is a shrubland biome in the Mediterranean region, typically consisting of densely growing evergreen shrubs such as holm oak, tree heath, strawberry tree, sage, juniper, buckthorn, spurge olive and myrtle...
, itself in part the result of the long presence of mankind
Mankind
Mankind may refer to:* The human species* Mankind , a 15th century morality play* Mankind , a 1998 massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game* Mankind , an album by Factory 81...
.
The drought-tolerant sclerophyll
Sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is the term for a type of vegetation that has hard leaves and short internodes . The word comes from the Greek sclero and phyllon ....
ous tree is believed to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean Basin
Mediterranean Basin
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have a Mediterranean climate, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, which supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation...
. It still provides the hardy and disease-resistant rootstock on which cultivated olive varieties are grafted.
Greek myth and legend
Literate Greeks recalled that the culture heroCulture hero
A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery...
Aristaeus
Aristaeus
A minor god in Greek mythology, which we read largely through Athenian writers, Aristaeus or Aristaios , "ever close follower of the flocks", was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; he was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene...
, originator of the arts of bee-keeping, cheese-making and other innovations of the most distant past, was he who "first pressed the fruit of the oily wild-olive."
In Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
Book V, when shipwrecked Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
has been cast ashore, he finds a wild-olive that has grown together with a bearing one— inosculated
Inosculation
Inosculation is a natural phenomenon in which trunks or branches of two trees grow together. When occurring in plants, it is biologically very similar to grafting....
, an arborist would say— on the Scheria
Scheria
Scheria –also known as Scherie or Phaeacia– was a geographical region in Greek mythology, first mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as the home of the Phaiakians and the last destination of Odysseus before returning home to Ithaca.-Odysseus meets Nausikaa:In the Odyssey, after Odysseus sails...
n seashore, where he crawled
Beneath two bushy olives sprung from the same root
one olive wild, the other well-bred stock
No sodden gusty winds could ever pierce them...
So dense they grew together, tangling side by side.
In the fourth century BCE Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
, the most prominent pupil of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, wrote an Enquiry into Plants that stands at the head of the literary tradition of botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
. Modern botanists often struggle to identify the plants named and described by Theophrastus, and modern naming conventions often make spurious links. An example is the modern genus Cotinus, which, though named after the ancient Greek kotinos, is unrelated to the wild-olive.
Theophrastus noted the kinship of wild-olive with the cultivated olive, but his correspondents informed him that no amount of pruning and transplanting could transform kotinos into olea. Through lack of cultivation, he knew, some cultivated forms of olive, pear or fig might run wild, but in the "rare" case where wild-olive was spontaneously transformed to a fruit-bearing one, it was to be classed among portent
Portent
Portent may refer to:* Portent , a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future* The Portent, a comic book* USS Portent , an Auk-class minesweeper...
s. He noted that wild kinds, such as wild pears and the wild-olive tended to bear more fruits than cultivated trees, though of inferior quality, but that if a wild-olive was topped it might bear a larger quantity of its inedible fruits. He noted that the leaf-buds were opposite.
Timber of the wild-olive was valued: it was proof against decay, and was not affected by shipworm
Shipworm
Shipworms are not worms at all, but rather a group of unusual saltwater clams with very small shells, notorious for boring into wooden structures that are immersed in sea water, such as piers, docks and wooden ships...
, which was a valuable feature in ship-building. It also provided stout handles for carpenters' tools.
The ancient wild-olive at Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...
, from which the victors' wreaths were made, had an aition, or origin myth, that was preserved in the local tradition, though the testament to it that has survived in a fragment is a late one, of the poet Phlegon of Tralles
Phlegon of Tralles
Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer and freedman of the emperor Hadrian, who lived in the 2nd century AD.His chief work was the Olympiads, an historical compendium in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th Olympiad , of which several chapters are preserved in Eusebius' Chronicle, Photius...
, who wrote in the second century CE. It appears that in the first five Olympiad
Olympiad
An Olympiad is a period of four years, associated with the Olympic Games of Classical Greece. In the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, Olympiads were used as calendar epoch....
s no victor received a wreath, but before the sixth meeting for the games, the Eleans
Elis
Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district that corresponds with the modern Elis peripheral unit...
, who were hosts at that time, sent their king Iphitos to Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...
to ask of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
whether wreaths might be awarded. The reply came back:
Iphitos, make not the fruit of an apple the prize of thy contest;
but on the victor's head set a fruitful wreath of wild-olive,
Even the tree now girt with the fine-spun webs of a spider.
On his return to Olympia, Iphitos found that one among the grove of wild-olives in the sacred precinct
Temenos
Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ...
was wrapped in spider webs. "He walled it round," as A.B. Cook says, "and wreathed the victors from its branches."
An ancient wild-olive tree also gained a talismanic character at Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
, according to Theophrastus, who noted how the wood of a tree overgrows and buries within its wood a stone placed in a hole made in its trunk:
This happened with the wild-olive in the market-placeAgoraThe Agora was an open "place of assembly" in ancient Greek city-states. Early in Greek history , free-born male land-owners who were citizens would gather in the Agora for military duty or to hear statements of the ruling king or council. Later, the Agora also served as a marketplace where...
at Megara; there was an oracle that, if this were cut open, the city would be taken and plundered, which came to pass when DemetriusDemetrius I of MacedonDemetrius I , called Poliorcetes , son of Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Stratonice, was a king of Macedon...
took it. For when this tree was split open, there were found greavesGreavesGreaves may refer to*Greave, armour that protects the leg *Greaves Greaves is also a surname, which may refer to:*Jimmy Greaves, English footballer*John Greaves, English mathematician and antiquary...
and certain other things of AtticAtticaAttica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
workmanship hanging there, the hole in the tree having been made at the place where the things were originally hung on it as offerings. Of this tree a small part still exists.
Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
' club was wrenched from a wild-olive tree, which the city of Troezen
Troezen
Troezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....
claimed as its own, for in the late second-century CE the traveler Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
visited Troezen and recorded an ancient wild-olive with which a local legend was entwined
Here there is also a Hermes called Polygius. Against this image, they say, Heracles leaned his club. Now this club, which was of wild-olive, taking root in the earth (if anyone cares to believe the story), grew up again and is still alive; Heracles, they say, discovering the wild-olive by the Saronic SeaSaronic GulfThe Saronic Gulf or Gulf of Aegina in Greece forms part of the Aegean Sea and defines the eastern side of the isthmus of Corinth. It is the eastern terminus of the Corinth Canal, which cuts across the isthmus.-Geography:The gulf includes the islands of; Aegina, Salamis, and Poros along with...
, cut a club from it.
Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
makes Heracles tell of his contest with the Nemean Lion
Nemean Lion
The Nemean lion was a vicious monster in Greek mythology that lived at Nemea. It was eventually killed by Heracles. It could not be killed with mortal weapons because its golden fur was impervious to attack...
:
I held in one hand my darts and the cloak from my shoulders, folded; with the other I swung my seasoned club about my ears and smashed it down on his head, but split the wild-olive, rugged as it was, asunder on the invincible brute's maned skull.
Old and New Testaments
The Old TestamentOld Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
writers also distinguished the two trees: zayit designates the cultivated olive, the wild-olive being designated in the seventh century BCE Nehemiah 8:15 as eẓ shemen; some modern scholars take this latter term to apply to Elaeagnus angustifolia
Elaeagnus angustifolia
Elaeagnus angustifolia, commonly called silver berry, oleaster, Russian olive, or wild olive, is a species of Elaeagnus, native to western and central Asia, from southern Russia and Kazakhstan to Turkey and Iran...
, the "Russian-olive".
Paul used the practice common in his day of grafting
Grafting
Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...
cultivated olive scion
Scion
Scion may refer to:*In kinship, a descendant , a son or daughter*Scion , a detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant which is grafted onto the stock...
s to the hardy rootstock of the wild-olive in an extended simile in Romans 11:17-24, contrasting the wild-olive tree (Gentiles) and the good "natural" olive tree (Israel): For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild-olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree. In the Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
the wild-olive has become agrielaios, "of the fields", and the cultivated tree kallielaios, the "fine" one.