Exceptionalism and Sacred Olives

by Jakob Elkaer

A few years ago, I was writing my bachelor thesis in history at the University of Copenhagen. The subject I had chosen was care relations in ancient Greece. Care, obviously, exists in many forms and shapes: a parent provides care for their newborn, a doctor for his or her patient and a soldier, you might argue, provides care for whomever he or she fights for. In recent years however, we’ve seen a necessary increase in the demand for nature- and climate-care. We are standing with both feet firmly planted in a world dramatically changing because of several generations of neglect.

In 2021 the psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe published a book called Psychological Roots of The Climate Crisis, in which she described how the rise of capitalism and neoliberal thought had changed our mindsets. Under the doctrine of heavy consumption and advertisement, we have become more selfish and egocentric. We have been deluded into thinking that our own needs are more important than anything else, and that it is acceptable to fulfil those needs no matter the consequences. Weintrobe label this change in self-perception and behaviour as human exceptionalism. Her focus on capitalism and neoliberalism as the stepping stone for this exceptionalism, however, got me thinking: Is it true that modern factors such as capitalism and neoliberalism have made us more exceptionalistic? What if we turn our heads towards a society much older than any of these concepts?

The people of ancient Greece, of course, were not familiar with terms such as climate-crisis, heavy consumption and so on. This obviously complicates a comparison between us and them. However, for the ancient Greeks, some parts of nature held a certain divine status. A status which I believe to be translatable to the divinity that nature has been given in our own time. One such part of nature was the sacred olive trees, known as moriai to the ancient Athenians, and given to them by Athena herself in the contest for the city-state’s patronage.

These sacred olives were regarded with much esteem. Pseudo-Aristotle for instance recounts how they were protected by law against anyone who sought to damage or destroy them. If anyone should commit any such crime against them, the punishment was death. The sacred olives, therefore, seemed a valid object for comparison.

Once I began my analysis, I noticed that pseudo-Aristotle, besides stating and describing the law, also mentioned that the very same law, though still active, were not maintained in his own day (Arist. [Ath. Pol. 60]). This necessarily made me wonder: Why did the law exist, if it wasn’t maintained? And why wasn’t the law maintained? Was it no longer necessary to protect the trees?

The sacred olives produced an equally sacred oil, which were awarded to victors at the great Panathenaea festival. However, after the events of the Peloponnesian war and the abolishment of the Delian League, the great festival had lost a lot of its attraction. This was a serious problem for the Athenians. After all, the Great Panathenaea was a prime vehicle for promoting Athens and her imperialistic aspirations and affairs. In response to this decline in the festival’s appeal, during the first quarter of the fourth century BC, the Athenians sought to double the prizes offered to victors (Papazarkadas, 269 & IG II 2311), including the amounts of sacred oil from the moriai.

The amount of sacred moriai in Attica in the beginning of the first quarter of the fourth century BC is not known (Foxhall 2017, 118.). However Pseudo-Aristotle recounts that in his time the oil used for the Great Panathenaea no longer came directly from the sacred trees themselves, but instead from the property on which a sacred tree was located. (Arist. [Ath. Pol. 60]). This was probably because the number of sacred trees couldn’t produce the required amount of oil which the doubling in prizes required. In other words: The prize oil given to Panathenaean victors, as a result, were no longer sacred, but merely an oil harvested from regular olive trees that grew in proximity to a sacred moriai.

Now because the sacred trees were no longer needed to produce the sacred prize oil, the law that were supposed to protect the trees, ceased to be enforced. The care which the Athenians had shown the trees disappeared, but why? Because they needed more oil to make the Great Panathenaea attractive again, and thereby make Athens regain some of its past glory and the position as the centre of the Hellenic world. By doing so, however, the ancients neglected the sacred trees. They neglected their obligation to protect them and put their own need for power and glory above all else.

The example clearly shows that mankind always put our own needs before nature, even the sacred kind. Our mind leads us to believe that these needs should be met at any prize, no matter the consequences. The ancients, like ourselves, walked this earth with this same exceptional self-perception. The question remaining might therefore be: Have we not come any further?

About the author

Jakob Elkær is the creator of @what.muses.sing. He recently completed his Master’s degree in History at the University of Copenhagen, where his thesis examined the democratic participation of small-scale farmers in ancient Greece. His research interests focus on Greek political and social history, particularly the role of ordinary people within democratic institutions. Outside academia, Jakob has recently embarked on a new adventure as a father.

Further reading:

• Dillon, J.M. (2004), Salt and Olives: Morality and Custom in Ancient Greece, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
• Foxhall, L. (2007), Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece: Seeking the Ancient Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Håland, E.J. (2012), ‘The Ritual Year of Athena: The Agricultural Cycle of the Olive, Girls’ Rites of Passage, and Official Ideology’ i Journal of Religious History, vol. 36, no. 2.
• Hanson, V.D. (1998), Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, Berkeley, Los Angeles & London, University of California Press.
• Isager, S. & Skydsgaard, J.E. (1992), Agriculture in Ancient Greece, London, Routledge.
• Johnston, A. (2007), “Panathenaic Amphorae, Again” in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 161.
• Luyster, R. (1965) ‘Symbolic Elements in the Cult of Athena’ i History of Religions, Vol. 5, no. 1.
• Papazarkadas, N. (2011), Sacred and Public Land in Ancient Athens, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Rhodes, P.J. (1993), A Commentary on The Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, New York, Oxford University Press.
• Rhodes, P.J. (2002), Aristotle, The Athenain Constitution, London, Penguin Books.
• Simon, E. (1983), Festivals of Attica, An Archaeological Commentary, Winsconsin, The University of Winsconsin Press.
• Weintrobe, S. (2021), Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis, New York, London & Dublin, Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.