"Florebaut olece: venli nocuere protervi" {Ihid.52\), Thus we see the force of the words of Eliphaz the Te- manite: "He shall cast off his flower like the olive" (Job XV, 33). It is needless to add that the locust was a formidable enemj- of the olive (Amos iv, 9). It hap- pened not unfretiuentlj' that hopes were disappointed, and that " the labor of the olive failed" (Hab. iii, 17). See Flower. " Of all fruit-bearing trees it is the most prodigal in flowers. It literalh' bends under the load of them. But then not one in a hundred comes to ma- turity. The tree casts them off by millions, as if they were of no more value than flakes of snow, which they closely resemble. So will it be with those who put their trust in vanity. Cast off, they melt away, and no one takes the trouble to ask after such empty, useless things— just as our olive seems to throw off in contempt the myriads of flowers that signify nothing, and turns all her fatness to those which will mature into fruit" (Thomson, Land ami Book, i, 525). See Blast.
That the olive grows to a great age has long been known. Pliny mentions one which the Athenians of his time considered to be coeval with their city, and
Old Olive-trees in the Garden of Gethsemaue.
OLIVE
350
OLIVE-OIL
therefore IGOO years old. Near Terni, in the vale of the cascade of Marmora, there is a plantation of very old trees, supposed to consist of the same plants that were growing there in the time of Pliny. Lady Calcott states that at Tericoncio, on the mountain-road between Tivoli and Palestrina, there is an ancient olive-tree of large dimensions, which, unless the documents are pur- posely falsified, stood as a boundary between two pos- sessions even before the Christian a^ra, and in the Sd century was looked upon as very ancient. The dif- ficulty on this point arises from a fresh tree springing up from the old stump. Chateaubriand says: "Those in the garden of Olivet (or Gethsemane) are at least of the times of the Eastern empire, as is demonstrated by the following circumstance. In Turkey every olive- tree found standing by the Mussulmans when they con- quered Asia pays one mediiia to the treasury, while each of those planted since the conquest is taxed half its produce. The eight olives of which we are speak- ing are charged only eight medinas." By some, espe- cially b}^ Dr. Martin, it is supposed that these olive-trees may have been in existence even in the time of our Saviour. Dr. Wilde describes the largest of them as being twenty-four feet in girth above the roots, though its topmost branch is not thirty feet from the ground ; Bove, who travelled as a naturalist, asserts that the larg- est are at least six yards in circumference, and nine or ten yards high ; so large, indeed, that he calculates their age at 2000 years. See Gethsemane.
It is more than probable that the olive was intro- duced from Asia into Europe. The Greeks, indeed, had a tradition that the first branch of it was carried by a dove from Phoenicia to the temple of Jupiter in Epirus, where the priests received and planted it; and Pliny states that there were no olive-trees in Italy or Spain before the 173d year from the foundation of the city of Rome. Though the olive continues to be much culti- vated in Syria, it is much more extensively so in the south of Europe, whence the rest of the world is chiefiy supplied with olive-oil. See Olive-oil.
No tree is more frequently mentioned by ancient au- thors, nor was any one more highly honored by ancient nations. By the Greeks it was dedicated to Minerva, and even employed in crowning Jove, Apollo, and Her-
The Olive {Oliia Enropcea).
cules, as well as emperors, philosophers, and orators, and all others whom the people delighted to honor. By the Romans also it was highly honored ; and Columella describes it as '■'■the chief of trees." It is not wonderful that almost all the ancient authors, from the time of Homer, so frequently mention it, and that, as Horace says, to win it seemed the sole aim some men had in life {Carni. i, 7). The olive still continues to be one of the most extensively cultivated of plants, Kitto men- tions that in a list he had made of references to all the notices of plants by the different travellers in Palestine, those of the presence of the olive exceed one hundred and fifty, and are more numerous by far than th»se to an\' other tree or plant {Phys. Hist, of Palest, p. ccciii). The references to vines, fig-trees, mulberries, and oaks rank next in frequency. These depend partly upon the knowledge of plants the several travellers have. Bot- anists, even from Europe, neglect tropical species with which they are unacquainted. See Tristram, Nat, Hist. of the Bible, p. 337 ; Thomson, Land and Book, \, 70. See Tree.
OLIVE-BERRY (^a'^5, gargar', so called from its round and rolling form ; Isa. xvii, 6, " berry ;" tXaia, Jas. iii, 12, elsewhere "olive," etc.), the drupe or fruit of the olive-tree, known as " olives" jjar excellence. It is greenish, whitish, violet, or even black, never larger than a pigeon's egg, generally oval, sometimes globular, or obovate, or acuminate. The fruit is produced in vast profusion, so that an old olive-tree becomes verj' valu- able to its owner. It is chieflj' from the pericarp that olive-oil is obtained, not from the seed, contrary to the general rule of the vegetable kingdom. Olives, gath- ered before they are quite ripe, are pickled in various wa3-s, being usually first steeped in lime-water, by which they are rendered softer and milder in taste. They are well known as a restorative of the palate, and are also said to promote digestion. Disagreeable as they gener- ally are at first, they are soon greatly relished, and in the south of Europe are even a considerable article of food. Dried olives are there also used, as well as pick- led olives. See Olive.