I promised myself when COVID-19 started to spread around the planet that I would not do what so many others have done, and produce my very own 'hot take' on pandemics and classics. So I won't. That's not to say I couldn't - plenty of trees in the Roman world have purificatory properties, and we will get to talking about them; plenty of trees were deemed to be medicinally beneficial, simply by being near them; and plenty of trees are employed in ancient remedies
But instead, today, let's take a moment to reflect on the olive. For no reason other than that I'm craving a Greek salad right now, and feta doesn't grow on trees.
Olive trees can live for thousands of years, and are the source of one of the more popular 'internet quotes' that go round. The sort that are overlaid on some stunning natural vista, or an enigmatic portrait of an eternally anonymous figure.
But why would this quote on the right be referring to olive trees in particular?
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
The quote is attributed to an 'Old Greek Proverb', but there is no evidence in Greek literature for the quote, only US congresspeople in the 1990s attributing their statements to an ancient civilisation. So where does the idea come from?
Seneca the Younger, the philosopher-cum-playwright, adviser to the Emperor Nero, and occasional letter writer, tells his friend Lucilius that 'there is not one amongst us who is not planting an olive grove for our successor' (Letters to Lucilius, 86.14). The context of this quote is in a letter about old age, and Seneca's and Lucilius' lives as old men. It is lifted from an idea also found in Vergil's poetry, his Georgics (2.58):
Now that tree, the one which grows from scattered seeds, it grows slowly, offering shade to future generations.
To plant a tree for future generations was a noble act, one which can also be found in Cicero's writing, specifically in his philosophical work On Old Age (24):
"He plants the trees to serve another age" as Caecilius Statius says in his 'Young Comrades'
Cicero, writing in the first century BCE, is quoting another, earlier author, a comic poet and playwright active in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE (220-166BCE). Clearly, this philosophy has deep roots. Pun absolutely intended.
But what does any of this have to do with the olive tree especially?
Olive trees may live for thousands of years, and they may produce absolutely delicious fruit, but they take a while to grow tall enough to produce shade, growing rapidly over their first three to five years, but far slower over the rest of their life. Planting an olive grove is a deliberate act of futureproofing, since you, the planter, will not benefit from a substantial crop, and certainly will not sit in the shade of one (unless you're very small, and curled up pretty tight).
Seneca was well aware of this, especially with an olive grove, and the memory of the planter was prominent in his mind when he was writing his letter to Lucilius. He was staying at a famous villa, which had belonged to Scipio Africanus, one of Rome's great generals, and one of Seneca's heroes. He had planted an olive grove, centuries before, and had not benefitted from its shade - Aegialus, the current owner, and luxurious renovator of the estate, did, as did Seneca himself. Pliny the Elder also commented on one of Scipio's olive trees, outside a cave with a large myrtle (Natural History 16.234). There's also a dragon there, but that's another story.
So, trees planted now, and especially olive trees, are not for you or I to enjoy the shade of. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be planting them, nor should we be expecting instant gratification from an acorn we've just put in the ground. These things take time to grow, but when they do, your legacy, as the tree planter, is secured.
And never, ever take a wooly attribution at the bottom of an enigmatic quote at face value.
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