The olive was one of the first arboreous species grown from the mediterranean populations. It had its origins in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East, in the Southern Caucausus, in Syria and in Palestine. Then, the olive's growing spread in the most famous greek isles such as Crete, Cyprus and Rhodes. Sequently, it arrived on the Spanish coasts, in Sicily, Sardinia and then everywhere in Italy.
The olive tree has always had religious meanings: greeks considered it a gift from the godness Athena while the Christian religion still considers it the symbol of peace. The olive oil has always been appreciated not only for alimentary purposes but also for its medical and cosmetical properties.

Everyone knows the symbolic meaning that the mediterranean people give to the olive. Its "godlike origin" is testified in all the legends and myths written about it. The olive has been a witness in history, mithology and literature and a co-protagonist of the increasing of the most important civilizations such as the Phoenix, the Ellenic, the Etruscan and the Roman. Its fame was glorious through all the classic civilizations.
The most famous greek myth about the oil is the one carved on the Parthenones' pediment. It is about a competition between Athena and Poseidon to win the property of Athens and of all the Attic region. The winner had to be the one that produced the greatest and most useful wonder, the judge was Zeus. Poseidon, the God of Oceans, created a new animal from the wood: a beautiful horse. Athena created from the earth a new tree: the olive. Zeus, without a shadow of doubt, decided: the horse was for the war, the olive was for the peace. The winner was Athena.
In Italy, the first region to have the sacred tree was Sicily, as the myth of Aristeo, son of Apollo and Cyrenes, tells. The story tells that Aristeo taught to the greeks how to produce oil from the olive's tree, then he went to Sicily where he created the olive's growing. Surely, the Etruscs cultivated the olive before the Romans but these last diffused it so much that at the end of the Republic and at the beginning of the Empire the olive tree was well known not only in Italy but also in France, Spain and Portugal, where it is still nowadays. According to the most famous roman scholars of the time, during the roman age there were already ten different types of oil: oleum ex albis ulivis (the best and most expensive) produced from light-green olives; viride made with olives that start to blacken; maturum produced from mature olives; caducum made with olives picked not from the tree but from the earh after falling; cibarium made from rotten olives which was only for slaves. 
After the falling of the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions the growing of olives almost disappeared. In the Middle Age the growing of olives and the production of oil was made only in few monasteries or fortified feuds. Actually, the monasteries created wider cultivation of olives and spread the commerce of oil that reached the highest diffusion during the Renaissance. In this age, the olive reached maybe its "superior aim". In fact, it was unified with another myth, the myth of the "ideal city" to create the greatest utopy: the quality of life. After a period of decrease around 1600, due to the Spanish domination, the production started to increase again in 1700 thanks to the liberalization of the market and to the abolition of tributes on olive yards. From then on, weather permitting, the oil's market, above all the Italian, spread also in Northern Europe, while olive yards improved in all the mediterranean countries. Nowadays, the "culture of oil" is again mixting with the concept of "life's quality" that is of the return to rhythms and armonies in the little "ideal cities".