How does your garden grow?

 

     How does your garden grow? 

With three notable exceptions, most of Homer’s references to the flora of his time are either contained in Homeric similes wherein he compares, for example, the fall to the ground of a stricken warrior to the crashing of a mighty tree, He fell down like an oak tree or a poplar or a tall pine tree on a mountain which the shipwrights fell with a newly-whetted axe for use on a ship, or a reference to a ferocious beast dwelling or hiding in a heavily wooded copse of trees or brambles. The three exceptions are his description of the fields, farms and pastures depicted on the shield of Achilles, the lush gardens belonging to King Alcinous and Queen Arete on their lands in the Phaeacian territory of Scheria, as well as the well-ordered gardens of Laertes, the father of Odysseus, on the island of Ithaca. In total, the Iliad and the Odyssey do contain nearly 90 references to specific plant species and they do indeed demonstrate his extensive and practical knowledge of the flora of the countryside of ancient Greece and Troy. Homer talks about plants as decorative elements of the landscape and also presents them as potent symbols, tools and medicines. We learn from the bard that the ancient Greeks used plants for food, medicine, construction and ritual purposes.

As mentioned, a common image of Homer’s is the likening of the fall of a warrior to the fall of a tree. The death of Simoisius at the hands of Ajax is a fine example, as are the deaths of the sons of Diocles by Aeneas. The savage rage of a wildfire striking a forest is also featured.

He fell down in the dust on the ground just as a poplar tree, which having sprung up and grows on an extensive marshy land, is smooth below and bears branches and leaves at the top, is cut down by a charioteer with his shining blade so that he can bend it into wheels for his chariot, and now it lies drying on the banks of the river. Such as this did the illustrious Ajax destroy Simoisius son of Anthemion.

 

In the same manner they were both overcome by the hands of Aeneas and fell like lofty pine trees.

As when a destroying fire falls upon a virgin forest and the raging wind blows it everywhere and the trees fall utterly as they are assailed by the rushing fire, such as this, under the attack of Agamemnon the son of Atreus, did the heads of the Trojans fall as they fled.

But not all of Homer’s tree similes relate to warriors falling like felled trees. Sometimes he portrays them as standing tall and straight, and in another instance, he compares a warrior’s death to a mere sapling being torn out of the ground by a high wind.

These two stood firmly in front of the high and lofty gates like high-topped oak trees on a mountain that stand like stalwarts in the wind and the rains of the day, anchored well by their firm and long roots. In the same way, trusting in their own strength, these two stood firm against the coming of the great Asius and did not turn and flee.

Like a man who raises a young well-growing sapling of an olive tree in a lonely place where the water wells up abundantly and the north winds make it shudder and it flourishes luxuriantly and bursts with white flowers, but suddenly there comes a blowing blast of wind with a furious storm and it is torn out of the ground and stretched out there dead, even so did Menelaus the son of Atreus slay the son of Panthous, Euphorbus of the mighty spear of ash wood and stripped him of his armour.

Wild beasts are often associated with wooded areas by Homer, where they either have their lairs or flee to while being hunted. In one reference, we see a wild boar doing great damage to trees and property.

Thereupon the arrow-shooting child of Zeus was provoked and sent against him a fierce white-tusked wild boar and it did much harm to the harvest lands of Oeneus. It uprooted many tall trees and cast them upon the ground along with roots and apple blossoms.

            We know from the bard’s many references that forests abounded in ancient Greece and Troy. It is commonly held that the Greeks basically deforested their land in order to get enough wood to build their massive navy, but there is some question about the validity of this statement. In the passage wherein Homer describes the wildfire that Hephaestus started on the plains of Troy to incinerate the dead, we get a pretty good picture of what the riverbanks looked like at the time.

So was all the plain dried up and all the corpses were consumed by the fire and then against the river he focused his gleaming flame. The elm trees, the willows and the tamarisks were all set afire as were the lotuses, the reeds and the galingale that grew in plenty around the fair stream.

Likewise in the Odyssey, when Odysseus washes up in the land of the Phaeacians, Homer describes what the flora by the seashore looked like when the hero was looking for a place to sleep for the night.

He thought about this and decided which was best and he went into the woods and near the water found a clearing and he crawled under two bushes that grew together, one a thorn bush and the other an olive tree. These grew so closely together and intertwine with each other, that the might of the wet winds, the rays of the bright sun and the rain could penetrate them.

            There are several references in the epics to trees being cut and used for construction, for example the palisade that the Achaeans built on the shoreline at Troy and the marital bed that Odysseus made for Penelope and himself, fashioned out of a living olive tree that was growing through their house. Also in the Odyssey, the hero cuts trees to build a vessel so that he can sail away from Calypso’s island.

Then she led him to the distant part of the island where tall trees grew, alder and poplar and fir trees that reached to the sky, well-dried and seasoned and capable of floating well. But when she had shown him where the tall trees grew, the beautiful goddess Calypso returned home again. He started cutting tree trunks and his work went quickly. He cut down twenty in all and he hewed them with the axe and then smoothed them all and made them straight. In the meantime, the beautiful goddess Calypso brought him augers and he drilled holes in all of them and fitted them all to one another and fastened them with bolts and hammered them all together. In the same way that a skilled boat-builder lays out a flat bottom and wide beam of a ship, so also did Odysseus fashion the width of his raft. He built a half-deck and set the ribs close together and finished the raft with long side planks. He set up a mast and a yard arm and fashioned a steering arm with a rudder. Then he fenced in the whole raft from bow to stern with closely-woven willow wicker and filled it all with lots of brush to protect the raft from the waves.

            Homer also tells us that the ancient Greeks used plants for medicinal purposes, whether it was an antiseptic or pain-killing lotion made from herbs that Patroclus applied to wounds, or soothing and calming drugs designed to induce peace and forgetfulness, such as the potion that Helen offered to Telemachus at the banquet in Sparta when stories of the Trojan War started to be told. At times potions were used for evil purposes, such as on the occasion when Circe administered an evil drug to Odysseus’s crew and turned them into swine. The hero himself escaped the same fate when he consumed the antidote moly.

            Of course Homer makes note of the fact that the Danaans and the Trojans made use of growing plants for food and most often mentions grains, olives and grapes, all used to subsidize a menu that featured meat as the staple provision. The reference to food leads us to a discussion of the three lengthy passages that describe the farms, fields, gardens and orchards that Homer depicts on the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, and the gardens of royal family of Scheria and that of Laertes, the elderly king of Ithaca, in the Odyssey.

            There are many references to plants and growing things on the shield of Achilles that Hephaestus fashioned for the hero at the request of Thetis. These give us a great picture of the abundance that the land must have provided, but certainly not in a time of war.

Then on the shield he fashioned rich and wide farmlands

On the shield he also portrayed a king’s domain wherein servants were reaping grain

On the shield he also fashioned a threshing floor heavily laden with clusters of grapes, a fine vineyard made of gold. The bunches of grapes were a rich black colour and were made to stand on vine poles fashioned of silver.

Then the famous god with the two lame feet created a pasture in a wooded glen

            By far the most luxurious garden of all is that which belonged to the royal family of Scheria, the Phaeacians Alcinous and Arete. The abundance of this garden is a testament to what can be created in peaceful times, when attention can be turned to agriculture and not warfare. I think that this description is a deliberate one on Homer’s part and he presents it in direct contrast to the violence that is depicted elsewhere in the Odyssey, as well as principally in the Iliad.

Outside in the courtyard near the door there is a large orchard four acres and around each side of it there is an enclosure. In it great trees bring forth luxuriant fruit, pears and mulberries and beautiful bright apples and figs sweet to the taste and flourishing olive trees. The fruit does not fail these trees or die, neither in the winter or summer, but lasts all year long. The West Wind blows constantly and brings some fruit to life and ripens others. Pear after pear ripens, apple after apple, one bunch of grapes after another, fruit after fruit. There the bountiful vineyard is planted, one part of the crop being dried in the wind on a level sunny spot, another part being gathered in and another being squashed underfoot and out in front, unripe grapes are dropping their blossoms while still others are beginning to turn a dark colour. There by the final row of vines grow well cared-for garden plots of all kinds that bear produce all year long.

            The old man Laertes likewise had a beautiful garden and Odysseus commented on it when he approached him in disguise and then later as he revealed himself.

He was digging around a plant with his head down and his glorious son came up to him and spoke. “Old man, not without skill do you tend an orchard and your level of care is good in total, for there is not a plant, or fig tree, or grapevine, or olive tree, or pear tree, or plot in the entire garden that lacks good care.

And come now and let me point out to you the trees in the well-tended orchard that you had given to me when I was but a child and we were strolling through the orchard and asking for one thing and another. We passed through these trees and you named them all, telling me what there were. You gave me thirteen pear trees and ten apple trees and forty fig trees. You also promised me fifty rows of vines and each of them bore grapes in succession with clusters of grapes of all sorts, whenever the seasons of Zeus weighed them down.

            Finally, it should be noted, that in addition to presenting the flora of his times as part of the landscape and being used for food, medicine, construction and for ritual purposes, such as wood for firing funeral pyres and sacrificial altars, Homer also uses plants and trees as symbols and often connects them with the human life cycle. For example, trees with their alternating seasons of growth, decay and re-growth, symbolize the fleeting nature of mortals and the ongoing cycle of succeeding generations. Homer compares the generations of men to the falling of leaves:

And they stood in the Scamadrian plain in just the same numbers as the multitude of leaves and flowers that are produced in the springtime.

They are crossing the plain to attack the city as thick as leaves on the trees or as the sands on the seashore.

Just as the wind scatters the leaves on the ground and the luxuriant woods produce even more and in the season of spring they come forth, so also in the race of men some spring up and others cease to exist.