Figs in Ancient Greece
Figs were a constant presence in Greek society, with the first Greek cultivation of figs probably occurring around 900 BC on the mainland and many centuries earlier than that on Crete. It appears that figs were already known and venerated at the high period of Cretan culture around 1500 BC. In Greek mythology there was a Titan whose name derived from the word for fig (συκή or syke); his name was Sykeus and he was one of the Titans who waged war against Zeus. After the defeat of the Titans, Sykeus took flight and was protected by his mother Gaia (the earth), who transformed him into a fig tree.
In the second generation of myths, there is a story of an Athenian called Phytalus who welcomed the goddess Demeter into his home and was rewarded by her with the gift of the first fig tree. This formula-myth is quite similar to the one which tells of Athena’s gift of olives and olive oil to Athens, but the geographer Pausanias says that the fig myth is confirmed by the inscription on the tomb of Phytalus:
The hero and king Phytalus here gave welcome to Demeter, the revered goddess, at the time when she was creating the first fruit of the harvest; men have given it the name of the sacred fig; whence Phytalus and his heirs derive immortal honour.
Plutarch tells how, in the time of Theseus, a holy symbol known as Eiresione would be created from an olive branch wrapped in wool and would be carried in procession to this prayer-chant:
Eiresione bring figs, and Eiresione bring loaves;
Bring us honey in pints, and oil to rub our bodies,
And a strong flagon of wine, so that all go mellow to bed.
The chant presents a charmingly modest Mediterranean version of luxury and plenty. We notice, of course, that figs are named first, before even bread and wine, and we are struck by the simple delights of the Aegean paradise which Eiresione is requested to provide.
Also in Greek legend we find the story of the combat of the seers, recorded by Hesiod and others. Calchas challenges Mopsus to say how many figs are growing on one especially heavily laden tree. Mopsus gives his answer as 10,001. The figs are then carefully harvested and counted and are found to number . . . 10,001.
It appears that in earliest times figs may have been an exclusive food in mainland Greece, a food for the rich and for religious use, but that in later centuries they were more easily available and hence became a staple food of the poor. Plutarch believed the tradition that Solon forbade the export of figs, sometime around 590 BC, and that the law was vigorously enforced. Those who tried to smuggle figs out of Attica were liable to be reported to the authorities by ‘those who reveal figs’ (sykophantes), a fascinating etymology for ‘sycophancy’.
The Athenian statesman Solon the Lawgiver (638–558 BC), who had strong views on figs.
The early importance of figs in Cyprus is manifested by the use of the same word syke in place names there. The name of the little village of Aglasyka means ‘excellent figs’ while the better-known village of Makrasyka, near Famagusta, which is Incirli in Turkish, means ‘long figs’ in both languages.
Several writers emphasize that although the Greeks defined themselves principally by the olive, the gift of Athena, they sometimes defined themselves also by the fig. References can be found contrasting the civilized fig-eating Greeks with the barbarous Medes ‘who know neither wine nor figs’. In Book III of The Deipnosophists (third century AD), among many pages on the glories of Greek figs, Athenaeus quotes Herodotus as believing that the fig is the most useful to man of all the fruits which grow on trees. He also quotes a certain Magnus as saying,: ‘the fig tree, my friends, is the guide to men to lead them to a more civilized life’, and the comic writer Antiphanes writing that Attica was superior to all other lands in honey, bread and figs. Figs are portrayed here as a yardstick and a symbol of the highest levels of civilization.
Athenaeus’ book is packed full of figgy anecdotes and quotation after quotation, often from authors now lost. He cites the story of Anchimolus and Moschus, as told by Hegesander: they were sophists living in Elis, and all their adult lives they drank only water and ate only figs; they were as healthy and vigorous as any other men, but their sweat smelt so offensive that everyone avoided them at the public baths. He believed that figs were especially good for children, and quotes Herodotus once again, making the intriguing suggestion that children fed on fig juice would grow to a great size. He also believed that figs were the most digestible of all fruit, which was proved by the fact that Greeks would eat far more figs than all other fruit put together. Then he gives us a Greek proverb in a format that appears in the food proverbs of many cultures: ‘Figs after fish, vegetables after meat.’
Athenaeus was aware of the distinction between brebas and figs, and he cites Aristophanes, Theophrastus and other Greek authors to illustrate the fact that some types of fig trees, some years, will bear two crops.
Greek literature is constantly enriched by references to figs, mostly in terms of reverence or pleasure. Many of the references in Homer and Hesiod are to fig trees rather than fig fruit, although the reference in The Odyssey to the delights of the fruit trees which are seen to tantalize Tantalus during Odysseus’ descent into the underworld refers to purple figs:
Above, beneath, around his hapless head,
Trees of all kinds spread their delicious fruit
There figs, sky-tinted, showed their purple hue,
Olives shone green, and pomegranates glowed.
Figs, olives and pomegranates: these were Homer’s idea of the three fruits most likely to tantalize a Greek, although when Pindar retold the story in his poem known as ‘Olympian I’, he had Tantalus tantalized by figs and pears.
Euripides (c. 480–406 BC) provides an insight into an interesting technique of food production when, in The Cyclops, one of the foods which Silenus offers to sell to Odysseus is cheese curdled with fig juice. According to modern-day cheese-makers, this is more likely to have been the white sap or latex from a fig branch than the juice from a fruit.
The poet Archilocus, writing around 700 BC, described the cultivation of figs on the island of Paros, in the Cyclades (where figs are still extensively grown). And in his The Science of Good Husbandry; or, The Oeconomics of Xenophon, Xenophon (c. 430–354 BC) underlines Socrates’ great interest in the art of growing grapes, figs and olives. Advising Socrates, Ischomachus stressed that figs should ideally be harvested individually, fig by fig, day by day, as each fruit reached its consummate ripeness.
Aristophanes (c. 446–386 BC) was one of the Greek writers who referred most frequently to figs, usually in a spirit of hilarity as well as pleasure. In The Acharnians, he made fun of the young girls’ greed for figs:
Soaring to the sun.
Hey, you’re squealing boldly for the figs.
Bring out the figs then, one of you indoors,
For these girlie greedy pigs.
Will they eat them though, I wonder.
Worshipful Herakles! look at them gobbling now!
In The Wasps, the boy’s special prayer turns out to be for dainty sweet figs, while in Clouds Strepsiades reflects on his marriage: his ladylike wife was always sweetly perfumed and smelling of saffron, while he himself, a simple country boy, goes to bed ‘smelling fresh and fruity, like ripe figs and new wool’. In Plutus, Plutus himself says ‘it does not become our poet to throw figs and sweetmeats among the spectators in order to bribe their applause’. And in The Suits Panaetis comes up with another original fig image: ‘You devour the ministers of finance as though they were figs, squeezing them to see which is still green, which ripe, and which bursting out his seeds.’
Following the expiration of Solon’s prohibition on the export of figs, we find numerous examples of Greek figs being sought by representatives of other civilizations, including those in India. In the third century BC, Bindusara, king of the Maurya lands in India, wrote to Greece requesting three things: some grape syrup, some figs and a philosopher. Grape syrup and figs, he was told politely, would be sent to him with pleasure, but it was against Greek law to trade in philosophers.
In the later years of Spartan dominance, frugal eating and communal living were imposed norms, especially under the rule of Lycurgus. The Spartans met, according to Plutarch, in groups of fifteen and each member of the company had to provide his monthly contribution of a bushel of meal, eight gallons of wine, five pounds of cheese, two and a half pounds of figs, and a small sum of money to buy meat or fish. Again we find figs numbered among the absolute necessities of Greek life, even in times of Spartan frugality.
The Phallic Fig
‘Dr Aigremont’, a pseudonymous author who in 1908 published a scholarly treatise in German on popular traditions of love and sex (Volkserotik), paid particular attention to the fig. He identified the fig as a symbol of fertility and propagation in many oriental countries, but above all in ancient Greece. Figs were sacred to Dionysus and the huge phallus carried at Dionysian festivals would be carved from fig wood – in memory of the fig-wood phallus which Dionysus was said to have placed on the grave of Polyhymnus. The fig was also sacred to the phallic godling Priapus, and priapic images would similarly be carved in fig wood. The sexual connotations of the fig were further evident in the obscene fig gesture, known to the Greeks and Romans, with the thumb pushed up between two fingers. Still current in Italy as far la fica, and present in Dante’s Inferno as Le mani alzò con amendue le fiche, the fig gesture is further discussed in the final chapter. The aphrodisiac qualities of the fig were widely credited in early societies, and appear still to be so in modern Turkey, where, in the tourist areas of Istanbul at least, dried figs are prominently and ubiquitously advertised as ‘Turkish Viagra’.
