My torch is lit, in honor of the god Prometheus:
Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song, And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shade: Apollo is once more the golden theme!
John Keats
Hyperion - Fragment, Book IIIThe Trios
Delian Treasures
Delos is the heart of the islands of Cyclades.
From the family of Solon, I came by way of Athens to Delos, and established a summer home.I grow olive trees, grapes and raise pigs. The grape seeds and the olives are grown and mashed for their oil. I sell the oil and use some to make herbal aromatics which I sell in my Herb Tabernae in Rome. The ship merchants have given me great opportunity for appropriating exotic herbs and spices which are exported and used for the aromatics. In the 6th century BC, Solon, the great Athenian legislator, drafted the first laws protecting the olive tree including prohibition of its uncontrolled felling and permitting the Athenians to export only the oil. That's because it takes so many years for an olive tree to bear fruit and it secures dependency of others on our oil export.
We are allowed to cut the low branches of the olive trees and do so for supplement to the pigs diet, which mostly consists of our food scraps and the purchase of wheat and spoiled fruits from market. They drink alot of water and grow to about the weight of a man. Sows, mother pigs (male pigs are called boars) only have, at the most, two piglets a year. We try to keep at least six in stock. They reach a fine price during festivals such as Thesmophoria, when Greeks honor the godessess Demeter and her daughter Persephone and pigs are sacrificed. There are alot of temples as Delos is the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Their mother, Leto, gave birth while clinging to a palm tree, a symbol of Delos.
Visitors to this Oikos
Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green,And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech,In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song, And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath the shade: Apollo is once more the golden theme!
John Keats
Hyperion - Fragment, Book III
The Trios
Delian Treasures
Out training Shy Anne BBL
