They say it was Apollo himself who gifted it to the Greeks—a divine offering meant never to be forgotten.
And suddenly, an entire civilization went wild for silphium. It was an exceptional aphrodisiac, an incredibly effective contraceptive, and a delicious culinary spice.
Silphium had it all—and nobody was keeping it a secret. We know this from Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Soranus of Ephesus, among many other Greek and Roman sources.
Silphium (or sylphion) was the most famous herb of antiquity, a botanical panacea revered across the ancient world. And, as if out of tragic irony, it was so rare that it became worth its weight in silver.
The plant grew exclusively in a narrow coastal strip near Cyrene, in what is now modern-day Libya. Nowhere else on Earth could it thrive—a fact that brings to mind today’s Chios mastic.
Its traders grew wealthy, as the ancient world craved it. It was immortalized in coins and pottery. When the Romans inherited it, silphium soared to legendary status. But none realized that overharvesting and overcultivation were pushing it toward extinction.
Soon, the world would be forced to live without silphium, searching for alternatives while the real thing slipped into the archives of history—still puzzling botanists to this day.
Because yes—it existed. But what exactly was it?
A Magical Herb for Everything
The Romans, perhaps more than anyone, leaned heavily on birth control—and in doing so, they may have driven silphium to extinction. If we believe the ancient texts, this herb was the most effective contraceptive known to the ancient world. But the story didn’t begin with the Romans.
The Greeks called the plant silphion, likely a close relative of giant fennel or celery. Greek cultivators valued it for its resin, while the Romans—less refined in their approach—used every part of the plant, including the roots.
Known to the Romans as silphium, laserpicium, or lasarpicium, the plant served as everything from a cooking spice to a topical pain reliever to a treatment for countless ailments.
Nearly all ailments, in fact. But silphium was most famous for its aphrodisiac and contraceptive powers.
It was first discovered by settlers from Thera in 630 BCE, when they established the Greek colony of Cyrene in North Africa. They named the city after the spring Kyra, sacred to Apollo—who, according to legend, gifted them the silphium plant.
One tale recounts Battus I arriving in Cyrenaica and being guided to a region known as the “hole in the sky,” likely due to heavy rainfall. There, in the sacred lands of Apollo, he founded his city—and received silphium as a divine blessing.
This rare and potent plant transformed Cyrene into a hub of Greek civilization in the unfamiliar African landscape. Silphium was so economically vital to the city that it was featured on nearly every local coin.
A Laconian kylix (a type of cup) from 565–560 BCE—known as the Cup of Arcesilaus—depicts King Arcesilaus II overseeing the silphium harvest, underlining just how central the herb was to the colony’s survival. Silphium became Cyrene’s ultimate symbol.
Over the next 700 years, silphium was a staple in the medical and spiritual arsenal across the Mediterranean.
The Egyptians knew of it as early as the 7th century BCE, using it for birth control, abortions, and treatments ranging from sore throats and coughs to leprosy. Remarkably, both Egyptians and Minoans even had hieroglyphs representing the plant—a testament to its importance.
Every part of silphium was used—from the stalk and roots to its precious juice. Many believe the Classical world revolved, in part, around this miracle herb. The Greeks adored it not just for its medicinal properties, but as a bold, flavorful spice akin to garlic—minus the overpowering odor.
They dried its juice for culinary use, while the Romans went further, consuming the entire plant, even preserving its roots in vinegar.
So prized was silphium’s flavor that livestock fed on it fetched sky-high prices, as it was believed to improve the taste of meat.
Even recipes survive to this day. Playwright Alexis described a method for preparing fish with silphium and cheese. The philosopher Xenocrates suggested using it on sea urchins with rue, brine, vinegar, or sweet wine. Athenaeus, in The Deipnosophists, mentions salted fish marinated with wine, oil, and silphium.
By Roman times, it had become a staple ingredient in nearly every recipe in Apicius’ culinary classic De Re Coquinaria—Rome’s ancient cookbook.
The Enigma of Cyrene
Why did this miraculous herb only grow in one specific region? No one knows. It thrived in a narrow 200 km by 50 km strip along the coast and refused to grow anywhere else.
For 700 years, every ancient civilization—from Minoans and Egyptians to Greeks and Romans—tried and failed to cultivate it elsewhere. Only Cyrene held the secret.
Silphium wasn’t just about flavor or fertility. It was prescribed for everything from sore throats and fevers to digestive issues and even venereal diseases. But we can only speculate how effective it truly was.
Hippocrates himself recommended applying it as a poultice for certain intestinal issues. Theophrastus and Dioscorides called it a “Heraclean panacea,” claiming its fragrant resin could treat a wide range of conditions.
Still, it was its contraceptive powers that won over the ancient world. Pliny the Elder noted that it could “expel the monthly flow,” implying abortive properties—something observed in its botanical cousins like parsley, even today.
Silphium also appears in Pausanias’ Description of Greece, in a tale of the Dioscuri visiting the Spartan home of Phormion, where a table was found bearing only their images—and silphium.
In Roman poetry, it features in Catullus' verses to his lover Lesbia, cementing its link to passion and love.
Given such uses, many historians believe silphium was truly pharmacologically active—an early form of herbal birth control. Dioscorides certainly thought so.
Its flower was even used in perfumes, proving that not a single part of the plant went to waste.
The End of Silphium
A botanical goldmine for Cyrene, a panacea for the ancient world, and a natural aphrodisiac beyond compare—silphium’s fate was sealed by overuse.
The Romans pushed it past its limits. They even fed it to their best livestock, believing it enhanced the flavor of meat.
By the 1st century CE, it simply stopped growing.
Overcultivation and overgrazing ruined the fragile ecosystem of Cyrenaica. Pliny the Elder recounts that the last known silphium sprig was gifted to Emperor Nero as a curiosity.
Within a few decades, the once-glorious plant vanished. Julius Caesar had once stockpiled vast reserves of it for the Roman treasury—so valuable it was practically a currency. “Silphium juice,” the Romans said, “is worth its weight in denarii.”
Even after its disappearance, silphium continued to be listed among prized aromatics well into the 8th century CE.
Theophrastus confirmed that it could not be cultivated, while Strabo blamed desert tribes for destroying its roots. Its demand, driven largely by its contraceptive reputation, may have contributed to its extinction.
Today, botanists have yet to conclusively identify what silphium really was. Many believe it belonged to the Ferula genus. The closest surviving relative might be asafoetida, still used in Indian cuisine today—but according to Dioscorides, it lacked both the aroma and the potency of the original.
A Symbol of Love
There’s one final theory: some believe the iconic heart shape—so familiar yet anatomically inaccurate—may have been inspired by the seedpod of silphium.
If true, this miracle plant didn’t just influence medicine and cuisine—it left a lasting mark on the very way we symbolize love.
A plant that was at once aphrodisiac, contraceptive, medicine, and delicacy—silphium was the ancient world’s ultimate wonder. A gift from the gods, now lost to time.
