The olive tree and its myths.

We know two Greek myths about the olive tree origin. The great lyric poet Pindar (518-ca/475 b. C.) in his Olympic III that sings the victory of Jerome, Syracuse's despot, reports the myth about the olive tree that was brought in by the Dorian hero Heracles from the Hyperborean's country (farther of the Boreas wind) up to the Olympia's shrine, in Greece. Pausanias resumed this same myth in the II century a. C. in his description of Greece. Towards the end of the Roman Republic, the merchants dedicated, in Delos, a shrine and a statue to Hercules Olivarius. It was believed that the Greek hero's club was made of olive tree's wood.
The second Greek myth credits to Athena, the guardian goddess of Athens, the first appearance, the olive tree invention and even its introduction in Attica. The olive tree was the gift that the goddess gave to Athens so that the city would recognize her as a sovereign, since the sea's god, Poseidon, was challenging it with Athena. The two gods offered at Athens the best gifts possible: Poseidon donated a lake in the acropolis, where Athena made appear an olive tree. The twelve Olympus gods, selected as umpires, preferred the olive tree and granted Athena the sovereignty of the city. For this reason, the goddess, appears crowned with olive tree's branches in the coins minted after the Greek victory over the Persian in Marathon.