The first harvest from an olive tree represents a long-awaited investment: It takes about a dozen years before a first crop is produced, and another 25 before the tree is fully mature. But then an olive tree can last for centuries.
Olive oil was used by the Greeks to light their lamps, for lubrication, and even on their bodies: Athletes rubbed it on themselves before exercising, since they competed naked. Afterward, they used a tool called a strigil to scrape off excess oil and dirt before bathing. Greek doctors also used olive oil as a medicine to heal wounds and treat such ailments as nausea and insomnia.
The philosopher Democritus (c. 470-c. 380 B. C.E.) believed that eating olive oil led to a long life. Modern doctors tend to agree. Olive oil has no cholesterol and is one component of the Mediterranean Diet, which also includes vegetables and whole grains. This diet can lower the chances of developing heart disease and cancer, according to a study of more than 20,000 adults in modern-day Greece (as
Reported in the New England Journal of Medicine).
The olive was so important to the ancient Greeks that they passed laws limiting how many trees could be cut down each year in a grove. Modern olive farming, however, does not have similar restrictions. Today, olives remain one of Greece's most important crops, and almost 15 percent of its farmland is devoted to them. The European Union encourages farmers in Greece and several other Mediterranean countries to produce as many olives as possible, and the olives and their oil are then sold outside Europe. This lucrative trade has led farmers to abandon the old practice of spacing trees fairly wide apart. Ancient olive groves have been plowed under and new farms, with tightly packed trees, have replaced them. In 2001, the WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) reported that the changes in olive farming were destroying the soil in parts of southern Europe, as well as depriving some animals of their natural habitat.
Large piece of fabric, about 6 feet wide by 11 feet long. The Doric-style chiton was actually two dress lengths fastened with brooches at the shoulders; it hung in folds and was belted around the waist. The Ionian style chiton had holes cut for the arms and neck and also hung in folds. The fabric was made from finely woven wool, linen, or cotton muslin. Corinth exported ready-made robes of fine linen.
For warmth women (and men) wore a shawl-like himation, which was artfully draped over the shoulders, and also wore caps or veils and carried parasols to protect them from the sun. Women wore their long hair up,
Or sometimes curled, and decorated it with combs made from bone, ivory wood, bronze, or tortoise shell.
Men wore a short tunic, with white fabric signifying wealth while others wore natural-colored wool. Spartan children and some poorer Athenians might wear a himation alone, just large enough to wrap around the body. Decorated vases show people of all classes in bare feet, although there were cobblers who made shoes. Travelers often wore boots, and wealthy women wore fancy shoes.
Family Rituals
Greek Fashion
The women are gathering on this fifth-century b. c.e. Greek cup. They are wearing the chiton and the himation.
Religion played an important role in family events. Weddings often occurred in Gamelion, the month considered sacred to Hera, the goddess who oversaw marriage. (Gamelion is roughly equivalent to our January. The Athenian calendar had 10 months of 35 or 36 days each.) The evening before a teen-aged bride left to go to her new husband’s home, her family offered sacrifices to several gods, including Zeus, Hera, and Apollo. The bride gave up her childhood toys, such as her dolls, as offerings, and then took a ritual bath in water from a special fountain. Her groom also took a ritual bath.
On the wedding day the homes of both the bride and groom were decorated with olive and laurel leaf garlands. The bride’s father hosted a sacrifice and a banquet at which men and women sat separately. The bride was present but veiled, dressed in her best clothing and wearing a wreath on her head.
Included in the wedding feast were sesame cakes to ensure fertility, and after the meal the bride received her gifts, which often included jewels. At the end of the day, a procession formed to accompany the bride to her new home. Spartan brides were carried off as if they were being abducted.
Greek marriages, especially among the wealthy, were primarily a
A Place Like Heaven
A few lucky people, the ancient Greeks believed, might spend their afterlife in Elysium. This mythical land was the final resting place for heroes favored by the gods and was said to exist somewhere beyond the known human world. The poet Pindar said the lucky souls who reached Elysium found "the plains around their city are red with roses and shaded by incense trees heavy with fruit" (as quoted in Charles Freeman's The Greek Achievement).The notion of Elysium has endured in the phrase "Elysian fields," which poets and others have used as a synonym for paradise.
Social institution with the purpose of producing children as caretakers for their parents in later years and then as heirs to family property. Aristotle was happily married to a friend’s niece, and wrote of the benefits of a good marriage, but in many cases wives and husbands had little to do with each other once two or three children were born.
In Sparta, where men spent little time at home (they continued to dine with the other men in their communal mess halls even after marriage), marriage was mandatory. Divorce was legal among the ancient Greeks, but a woman could not set up her own household. She would have to return to the legal protection of a male relative if she wanted to leave her husband.
When a baby was born, an olive branch was hung on the family’s front door to announce a boy, or a piece of woolen cloth for a girl. Several days after a child’s birth a ceremony took place to welcome the child into the family and purify the mother and those who had attended her in childbirth. Purification rites were mandatory after a birth, to cleanse those involved from the “contamination” of childbirth. On the 10th day after a child was born, a banquet was held and the child received a name and gifts.
In Sparta, babies were considered state property. All newborns were shown to local elders-men with some degree of social authority. According to the Roman historian Plutarch (c. 46-c. 120 C. E.), the elders examined the baby. If he or she was “well-formed and lusty they allowed it to be reared, but if it was sickly or misshapen they had it taken to the place called Apothetai, a high cliff. . where it was abandoned (as quoted in Robert Flaceliere’s Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles). Unlike other babies of that era, who were wrapped in tight swaddling that restricted their movement, Spartan babies were loosely covered; they began their life of exercise immediately.
Most Greeks believed that after they died, their spirits, or shades, descended into the underworld of Hades, where they wandered aimlessly, experiencing neither pleasure nor pain. Certain religious cults, however, did talk about an afterlife where souls enjoyed bliss they could only dream about on earth. In either case, a proper funeral was considered essential. At one point laws were passed in various city-states, particularly in egalitarian Sparta, prohibiting lavish displays at funerals because it raised envy among poorer people. Athens also banned lavish funerals because showing off was considered undemocratic.
Many valuables have been found by archaeologists that were buried along with the deceased, including coins, which sometimes were placed in the mouth of the body to pay for the ferry trip from the land of the living to the underworld that lay across the mythical River Styx.
World History
