ARCHAEOLOGY AND OLIVE CULTIVATION

Amongst the most common forms of arboriculture in Italy, just as in Greece, is the cultivation of the olive tree. The truth is, though, that this fruit tree was known of and planted in Calabria long before the Greek colonisation of the Ionian and Tyrrhenian coasts.
To the Greeks goes the merit of having brought to olive cultivation high levels of organisation, expansion and diffusion, not only to its flowering Ionian and Tyrrhenian colonies, but to the whole of the Mediterranean basin.
Methods for working the land were the same as those used in Greece, which have actually remained traditional and practically unchanged up to the present day. The images of tools, ploughs and work instruments such as sickles, brought to light during excavations of farms (such as at Eraclea), show the uninterrupted continuity of methods and techniques for working the land from the Greek to the Roman world, in both central and peripheral areas.
This is supported by great historical and archaeological documentation which is priceless in helping us understand the new land and property regime which was applied by the Greeks in Italy. This was based on the subdivision of the lands which were useful for cultivation into lots, on the understanding that property should stay within the family.
These rules are revealed in the two bronze tablets from Eraclea, found in the baronial castle in Policoro, where reference is made to the land belonging to the temples of Dionysius and Athena, which a few unidentified, private individuals had acquired illegally over the course of time. Thanks to these two Greek epigraphs, not only is the new property arrangement documented, but precise reference to tenants’ obligations is available.
The tenants of the land along the side of the road which ran up from Pandosia (Sybaris) had to plant no fewer than 10 scheni (a scheno was equal to 60 stadi, corresponding to about 1 hectare) of vines along the side of the Hercules property up to the 30 foot wide road and they had to plant no fewer than 4 olive trees per scheno on the high ground.
Both for fruit and for olive trees, it was necessary to dig holes around the base and, when the moment was right because old age or winds might bring the tree down, to prune or plant an equal number of trees, placing them where others already stood. A collective irrigation system is also mentioned, presupposing an efficient, centralised, evidently public run, organisation.
If a tenant disobeyed the rules laid down in their particular conventions, they had to explain themselves to the “polienomi”, 10 citizens elected by the people with an annual role; if, in turn, these did not keep watch as they were supposed to, according to the principle of a magistrate’s responsibility, they were guilty of “incuria vigilando”.
In the convention it was stated again that the same number of trees had to be planted and alive 15 years after the year in which Aristion was ephor.
Whenever the plantations were not cultivated as indicated in the rules, the tenants were condemned to the payment of a fine of 10 silver coins for each olive tree missing and 10 silver minae for each vine.
No-one was allowed to cut, saw, sell or burn a tree, either for themselves or for someone else. This regulation can also be found in the Greek legislation of Solon  and this is testimony to the great consideration given to the olive tree. It was venerated to the extent that its production could only be harvested by “pure men”, in other words, by those who had sworn honesty and loyalty before the harvest; in fact, in Cilicia, the harvest was carried out by virgin girls, because superstition had it that this would lead to a more abundant extraction of oil.
After Solon, Peisistratos,  a tyrant favoured and protected by the goddess Minerva, increased the value of the olive so much that it gained a symbolic significance, something which still holds true today. It was used, in fact, to symbolise Peace,  Triumph and Minerva who, being guardian to the olive, was considered to be the origin of Knowledge, Art and industry.
Attributes of fertility and miracle working were associated with the olive tree. For this reason, Odysseus chooses to build his nuptial chamber around an olive tree (Homer, The Odyssey, book XXIII); the statues of Damia and Auxeria were made from olive wood and high priests burnt olive leaves and trunks when they prayed for the end to epidemics or pestilence. In the age of Pericles, olive cultivation enjoyed its finest period and its commerce intensified, moving, particularly, to the fertile colonies of the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian. It could be found in abundance on the hills around the city of Taranto, in Salento and at Eraclea.
The oil became the most important food product for consumption and trade and contributed enormously to economic exchange and movement in Greece. All of this helped in the growth of other sectors such as that of ceramics, with the making of jars for the serving and conserving of oil, and mercantile trade, for its transport overseas.
In this context, the olive-cultivation of the Calabrian colonies had a decisive role in that, besides being the largest producers of oil in the Mediterranean, were also distinguished because of the excellent quality of their oil and their monopoly of the oil trade.
Of particular fame were the oils from Medma (Rosarno), Terina, Caulonia, Locri and Kroton (Amphis, comic poet from the IV century, refers to the olive oil from Thurii, Sybaris) where the olive growing establishments were highly specialised. Archaeological excavations carried out in the areas of Crotone and Sibari have brought to light numerous vessels dating from the IV and III centuries B.C., containing seeds of various types. The predominant position of olive cultivation, over that of wheat, barley and grapes, is confirmed by the great number of olive seeds found.
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

P. Gullo, Il talamo di Ulisse. Tratti di storia dell’olivicoltura nel Mediterraneo Occidentale, Rubbettino editore 2000; pp. 25-28.
Pugliese Caratelli G. (a cura di), Megale Hellas. Storia e civiltà della Magna Grecia, Milano 1983; pp. 672-713.