The olive branch is a symbol of peace and victory associated with customs of ancient Greece and connected with supplication to gods and persons in power. It is found in most cultures of the Mediterranean basin and became associated with peace in the modern world. Ancient Greece and Rome In Greek tradition, a hiketeria (ἱκετηρία) was an olive branch held by supplicants to show their status as such when approaching persons of power or in temples when supplicating the gods. In Greek mythology, Athena competed with Poseidon for possession of Athens. Poseidon claimed possession by thrusting his trident into the Acropolis, where a well of sea-water gushed out. Athena took possession by planting the first olive tree beside the well. The court of gods and goddesses ruled that Athena had the better right to the land because she had given it the better gift. Olive wreaths were worn by brides and awarded to olympic victors. The olive branch was one of the attributes of Eirene on Roman Imperial coins. For example, the reverse of a tetradrachm of Vespasian from Alexandria, 70-71 AD, shows Eirene standing holding a branch upward in her right hand. The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) associated "the plump olive" with the goddess Pax (the Roman Eirene) and he used the olive branch as a symbol of peace in his Aeneid: For the Romans, there was an intimate relationship between war and peace, and Mars, the god of war, had another aspect, Mars Pacifer, Mars the bringer of Peace, who is shown on coins of the later Roman Empire bearing an olive branch. Appian describes the use of the olive-branch as a gesture of peace by the enemies of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus in the Numantine War and by Hasdrubal the Boeotarch of Carthage. Although peace was associated with the olive branch during the time of the Greeks, the symbolism became even stronger under the Pax Romana when envoys used olive branches as tokens of peace. Early Christianity The olive branch appears with a dove in early Christian art. The dove derives from the simile of the Holy Spirit in the Gospels and the olive branch from classical symbolism. The early Christians, according to Winckelmann, often allegorized peace on their sepulchers by the figure of a dove bearing an olive branch in its beak. For example, in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome (2nd – 5th