The great triangular pediment over the west entrance to the Parthenon in Athens depicted the legendary contest between the goddess Athena and Poseidon, god of the sea, for control of Attica and Athens. Athena offered the olive tree and wisdom; Poseidon offered the horse and the power of the sea. The decision went to Athena, who became the patron of the city (12). Athena's sacred olive tree, according to the Greek historian, Herodotus, writing in the 5th Century B.C., was burned by the Persians but sprouted again from the roots. The present sacred olive tree (Fig. 1) of Athena was planted in more recent times and now grows at the top of Athens' rocky Acropolis near the Erechtheum, home of the famous Caryatids. The cultivated olive certainly must have had its beginning as selections from the wild olive, which seems to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean region (4, 5). The olive tree has been grown in Greece at least since the time of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, circa 3,000 B.C. Engravings of olive trees on vases, frescos, and rings unearthed at the palace at Knossos show that the people of that era ate olives and used olive oil as a fuel for their earthen lamps. A gold cup (Fig. 2) found among remnants of the Mycenaean civilization in