BOOK XV
I. ONE of the most celebrated Greek authors, Theophrastus, who flourished about 314 B.C., stated that the olive only grows at places within forty miles of the sea, while Fenestella says that in 581 BC., during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, it was not found at all in Italy and Spain or in Africa; whereas at the present day it has penetrated even across the Alps and into the middle of the Gallic and Spanish provinces. Indeed in 249 BC., the year in which Appius Claudius the grandson of Appius Claudius Caecus and Lucius Junius were the consuls, olive-oil cost 10 asses for 12 lbs. and somewhat later, in 74 BC., the curule aedile Marcus Scius, son of Lucius, throughout the whole of his year of office supplied the Roman public with oil at the rate of an as for 10 lbs. These facts will seem less surprising to a person who knows that 22 years later in the third consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Italy exported oil to the provinces. Also Hesiod, who thought that instruction in agriculture was a prime necessity of life, declared that no one had ever gathered fruit from an olive-tree of his own plantingso slow a business it was in those days, whereas now olive-trees bear even in the nursery-gardens, and after they have been transplanted olives are picked from them the next year.
II. Fabianus says that the olive will not grow in extremely cold places nor yet in extremely hot ones. Virgil said that there are three kinds of olive, the orchites, the shuttle-olive and the posia; he also stated that the olive-tree does not require raking or pruning or any attention. There is no doubt that even in the case of olives the soil and the climate are of very great importance; but nevertheless they are also pruned at the same time as the vine, and they like the ground to be raked between them as well. Olive-picking follows the vintage, and making olive-oil requires even more science than making wine, as the same olive-tree produces a variety of oils. The first oil of all is obtained from the raw olive and when it has not yet begun to ripenthis has the best flavour; moreover its first issue from the press is the richest, and so on by diminishing stages, whether the olives are crushed in wicker sieves or by enclosing the spray in narrow-meshed strainers, a method recently invented. The riper the berry is, the greasier and less agreeable in flavour is the juice. The best age for picking olives, as between quantity and flavour, is when the berry is beginning to turn black, at the stage when they are called druppae with us and drypetides by the Greeks. For the rest, it makes a difference at that stage whether the maturing of the berry takes place in the presses or on the boughs, and whether the tree has been watered or the berry has only been moistened by its own juice and has drunk nothing else but the dews of heaven.
III. It is not the same with olive-oil as with wineage gives it an unpleasant flavour, and at the end of a year it is already old. Herein, if one chooses to understand it, Nature shows her forethought, inasmuch as there is no necessity to use up wine, which is produced for the purpose of intoxicationrather indeed the attractive over-ripeness which it acquires with age tempts us to keep it; but she did not desire us to be sparing in the use of oil, she has made it universal even among common people because of the necessity of using it quickly. In the matter of this blessing also Italy has won the highest rank of all the world, particularly in the district of Venafro and the part of it which produces the Licinian oil, which causes the Licinian olive to be exceptionally famous. It is unguents that have given it this eminence, because its scent is so well adapted to them, but it has also been awarded to it by the palate with its more delicate judgement. Moreover no bird will touch the berries of the Licinian olive. The remainder of the competition is maintained between the territory of Istria and that of Baetica on equal terms, while for the rest the provinces have an approximately equal rank, with the exception of Africa, whose soil is adapted for grain. This territory Nature has yielded entirely to the Corn-goddess, having all but entirely grudged it oil and wine, and having given it a sufficiency of glory in its harvests. The remaining statements prevalent concerning the olive are full of error, which shall prove to be more prevalent in no other department of life.