• STOCKPHOTO “There are two liquors very agreeable to the human body, the wine within, the oil without. These liquids, products of two trees, are excellent; but oil is a necessary object. This assertion by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History was right:olive oil was an essential product in the daily life of the ancient Romans, for whom it served not only as a cooking ingredient, but also as fuel for lighting and as an ointment, whose use met the hygiene standards in the thermal baths. It is not surprising that an entire production, marketing and transport industry has developed around this precious liquid. If the manufacture of oil was introduced in ancient Rome by the Greeks and the Phoenicians, its large-scale production and the generalization of its consumption to all social classes were the work of the Romans. The oil was made in villae , rural farms, where it was also common to cultivate cereals and produce wine. Once harvested, the olives were stored on the floor of a room called tabulatum , which was waterproofed and slightly tilted to allow the fruit to drain the vegetable water. Described by Pliny as a dark and fetid substance, this liquid could be used as an insecticide, herbicide or fungicide. Extracted with elbow grease Different mechanisms were then employed to grind the olives without breaking the pit, which was supposed to give the oil a bad taste. The most common grinding system was called the trapetum :a large mill composed of a fixed base (mortarium ) and two semi-spherical stones (orbis ), which two men were turning on the mortarium by pushing a horizontal axis. The olive paste thus obtained was subjected to high pressure using a press called torcularium , like the part that housed this complex mechanism. The extracted oil was then decanted into dolia , large globular earthenware jars, the lower half of which was usually buried, before being stored in amphoras stored in the cella olearia . There were three categories according to the quality of the oil. Dubbed oleum omphacium , the best was extracted from olives that were still green during the month of September. It served above all as a religious offering and as a base in the composition of perfumes. According to Pliny, “the best oil comes from the raw olive which has not yet begun to ripen; it is the one whose taste is preferable […]. The riper the olive, the fatter the juice expressed, and the less pleasant it is. Next came the oleum viride , an oil made in December from olives that ranged in color from green to black; it was a sweeter, fruitier oil. Finally, the oleum acerbum was a lesser quality oil, as it was made from olives picked from the ground. The intermediate category (oleum viride ), the most used in gastronomy, could in turn be subdivided into three varieties:oleum flos , equivalent to our extra virgin oil, was obtained after a first pressing; extracted from a second pressing, the oleum sequens was an inferior oil; finally, the oleum cibarium , the most common, came from later pressings. Seasoning, cooking, frying Oil was a basic ingredient in the Roman diet, as is still the case in the current “Mediterranean diet”. The famous collection of recipes by Apicius, Culinary Art , mentions it in more than 300 recipes. The oil was used for seasoning as well as seasoning, cooking or frying. It was also used in the preparation of sauces, which varied according to the type of food accompanied, but in which oil was invariably used as a base. Apicius, for example, recommends serving boiled meats with a white sauce made up of "pepper, garum, wine, rue, onion, pine nuts, aromatic wine, a little macerated bread to thicken the mixture and of oil”. Before serving a dish on the table, whether it was based on fish, meat, vegetables or legumes, it was often sprinkled with a few drops of oil. This also had its place in pastry; Apicius indeed gives the formula of a "dish which could also serve as a sweet":"Roast pine nuts and broken and peeled walnuts, pound them with honey, pepper, garum, milk, eggs , a little wine and oil. » Oil was so important in the Roman diet that Julius Caesar went so far as to include it in the annona, which corresponded to the grain provisions distributed free to the army for its food. The demand for oil then began to grow exponentially. The presence of this product in a camp of soldiers stationed on the northern border of the Empire indicates that the peoples of central and northern Europe gradually included it in their diet. Athletes with brilliant bodies The oil also performed other fundamental functions in daily life. It was used in particular as fuel for lighting:the Romans used hollow oil lamps (lucernae ), which they made from molds and filled with their worst olive oil. By soaking up this oil, a vegetable fiber wick made of spun flax or papyrus could thus burn longer. The oil also served as an ointment, hence Pliny's expression:"The wine within, the oil without." Those who practiced physical exercise in the thermal baths in fact smeared their bodies before going to train in the arena or the gymnasium. They thus protected their skin from the sun while moisturizing it. After training, they cleaned their skin with a strigil, a bronze tool whose curved shape allowed them to remove the layer of oil, dust and sweat they had accumulated. Astonishing as it may seem, it was a highly coveted mixture, which gym directors sold for medicinal purposes. As Pliny explains, "It is known that attendants in the gymnasiums sold 80,000 sesterces the scrapings of oil". The athlete's equipment therefore included one or more strigils and a small bronze or glass bottle intended to transport the oil. But athletes were not the only ones to use oil, applied to the body as a moisturizer or on wounds as an ointment. In medicine, it could be used alone or serve as an excipient; it was prescribed to treat ulcers, relieve colic or lower fever. The unguenta , scented oils associated with cosmetics and perfumery, spread from the II th century BC. These ointments were made from olive oil, but their composition could also include almond, laurel, walnut or rose oil. And because the deceased were also coated with these scented oils, it is not uncommon to find small glass ointment boxes even in funeral furniture. Find out more Archaeology of oil and wine in the Roman Empire, J.-P. Brun, Editions Errance, 2004. A highly controlled appellation product Under the Early Empire, the province of Betica (current Andalusia) became the largest center of oil production. According to Pliny, only oils from Istria (now Croatia) and Campania had a higher quality than Andalusian oil. The oil of Betica was exported throughout the Empire, to supply the army, but also the city of Rome. From the reign of Augustus, the emperor began to control the production of this region and set the market prices himself. This trade went hand in hand with that of salted fish, of which Betica was also a major production centre. Under the Lower Empire, Africa entered into direct competition with southern Spain, establishing itself in turn as an important oil-producing region.
