Pliny the Elder on Olive Oil

Pliny the Elder, writing his vast Natural History in the first century AD, gave real attention to olive oil — how to grade it, when to harvest, how it ages. Strip away the Latin and a startling amount of his advice would pass for sound guidance in a modern tasting room.

Gaius Plinius Secundus — Pliny the Elder — died in AD 79 at the eruption of Vesuvius, leaving behind a thirty-seven-book encyclopedia, the Natural History, that tried to catalogue the whole known world. Book XV deals with the fruit trees, and its treatment of olive oil is worth reading not as a curiosity but as evidence: two thousand years ago, careful people already knew most of what matters about buying good oil.

What Pliny got right

Pliny ranked olive oils by quality and origin, prized oil pressed from unripe, green-picked olives, and declared Italian oil the best in the Mediterranean — a Roman’s patriotism, but rooted in real comparison. His most modern insight is about freshness. He understood that olive oil, unlike wine, does not improve with age: in his words, ‘age gives it an unpleasant flavour, and at the end of a year it is already old.’ He also noted that the first, gentlest pressing of barely-ripe fruit gave the finest oil of all. Two thousand years before we measured polyphenols and oxidation, he had grasped the single most important fact a buyer needs: fresh oil is good oil, and old oil is fading oil.

The trade he describes

Pliny also documented olive oil as serious Roman business — produced across Italy, Spain and North Africa, shipped in amphorae, graded and priced by type. He describes oil’s many uses beyond food: lamps, cosmetics, athletics, medicine. The picture is of a sophisticated commodity with quality tiers, regional reputations and plenty of room for fraud — problems we still wrestle with. Reading him is a useful corrective to the idea that careful olive-oil appreciation is a modern invention. The Romans had grades, snobberies and a clear-eyed grasp that the early harvest, freshly pressed, made the finest oil.

Where Pliny went wrong — and why it doesn’t matter

He was not infallible. Like every ancient writer he mixed sound observation with hearsay, folk remedy and the odd tall tale, and his medical claims for oil range from the sensible to the fanciful. But here is the honest point: on the practical questions a buyer actually faces — is early-harvest better, does oil age well, can you trust a cheap unfamiliar bottle — he was right, and modern science has spent two millennia confirming him rather than overturning him. When ancient and modern agree this closely, it is usually because the underlying fact is simply true.

Who	Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), c. AD 23–79
Work	Natural History (Naturalis Historia), 37 books
Olive chapter	Book XV, on the fruit trees
On freshness	Oil, unlike wine, does not improve with age — old within a year
Best oil	The first pressing of green, barely-ripe olives
On origin	Ranked oils by region; rated Italian oil highest
Modern verdict	His practical advice matches today’s tasting-room consensus

Pliny’s advice, in a modern kitchen

• Buy the most recent harvest, not the oldest — oil does not mature like wine.
• Favour early-harvest, green oils for the finest flavour, exactly as Pliny did.
• Distrust a bottle boasting of age; a Roman naturalist debunked that two millennia ago.
• Expect regional character — the Romans already graded oil by where it came from.
• Assume fraud is old: ancient writers describe faked and cut oil, so buy from names you can check.

Pliny on olive oil: common questions

Who was Pliny the Elder?

A Roman author and naturalist (c. AD 23–79) who wrote the Natural History, a vast encyclopedia of the ancient world. He died during the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.

What did Pliny say about olive oil ageing?

That, unlike wine, oil does not improve with age. He wrote that age gives it an unpleasant flavour and that within a year it is already old — the same advice tasters give today.

Which oil did Pliny think was best?

Oil from the first, gentle pressing of green, barely-ripe olives — and, patriotically but with some justification, Italian oil above the rest of the Mediterranean.

Was Pliny always right about oil?

No — he mixed sound observation with folklore and dubious medical claims. But on the practical buying questions, his advice holds up remarkably well.

Why does Pliny still matter to buyers?

Because his core rule — fresh, early-harvest oil is best, and old oil only declines — is exactly what modern chemistry and sensory panels confirm.

Drawn from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, Book XV, and its treatment of olive oil quality, freshness and grading.