The legend about the founding of the capital of Greece, oddly enough, is associated in the second place with the olive tree. And in the first - with the confrontation between Pallas Athena and Poseidon.
The gods of Ancient Greece were not distinguished by restraint, passions were burning serious, the consequences of divine games were serious. The inhabitants of Olympus enjoyed all earthly pleasures, indulged their own weaknesses, including vanity.
The contests of the gods were in an active course, therefore, the god of the seas, Poseidon, and the daughter of Zeus, the goddess of war, peace and wisdom, Athena Pallas, agreed for the right to be called the master of Attica.
Legend has it that Poseidon struck with a trident, breaking the rock from where the salt water flowed - thus giving people a new source. It was a sign of the imminent superiority of "his" people on the seas, a kind of promise. Not bad, but Greece did not experience a deficit in salt water either then or now, because it is geographically located in an advantageous (from this point of view) location.
Then Poseidon added a chariot so that people could transport goods faster, expand connections and influence, get rich and feed well-trained soldiers. This gave serious advantages.
Athena planted a bone in the ground from which the first olive tree grew. And she won. The city was named after her - Athens.
And the fact is that the olive has become not just another fruit-bearing tree, along with, for example, grapes or a fig tree. The fruits of the olive tree were used not only directly, that is, for food. They were used to make oil, they were used in medicine, they were used for cosmetics. Of course, this became a commodity that brought considerable profits to the state.
The olive trees were under special control. Even landowners did not have the right to freely dispose of olive trees on their own plots.
Moreover, one of the seven sages of Ancient Greece, Solon (the same Solon who pretended to be insane in order to avoid the death penalty and force his fellow citizens to listen to the plan of salvation from a military offensive), issued a special series of decrees concerning olive trees. Harming them was punished severely - deprivation of property, fines, up to the death penalty.
Wood from these trees was also made, but only in completely exceptional cases and for purposes of a religious, sacred nature. The olive tree could only be burned as a sacrifice to the gods.
For the olive donated by Athena personified statehood and a productive social life, as would be expressed today in that part of the world that was formed under the influence of Greek politics, which became the basis for building a modern democratic system. No wonder Ralph Dutley, the Swiss philologist, poet and essayist, calls the olive tree the first democrat.
