It is said that it was Apollo himself who gave it to the Greeks because he wanted to give them a gift that no one would forget. Silphium was an aphrodisiac and a strong contraceptive, but it was also a delicious spice for food.
This is what Hippocrates, Dioscorides and Soranos the Ephesian tell us, but also many other Greeks and Romans.
Silphium was the most famous herb of the ancient world. But it was as rare as it worth its weight in silver. It grew exclusively in a narrow strip of land in Kyrenia, off the coast of North Africa (modern Libya), and thrived nowhere else, like the mastic of Chios today.
Those who traded in it grew rich, for the whole ancient world craved it. It was depicted on coins and vases and then conquered by the Romans. Only none of them understood that his over-intensive cultivation and mass harvesting led to its demise.
Soon, everyone would have to live without Silphium and find substitutes for it, so its history continues to puzzle botanists to this day.
It existed, but what exactly was it?
A magic herb for everything
The Romans used contraception a lot, and for that reason, they made the herb disappear that was considered the most effective means of contraception throughout the ancient world. Although it wasn't the Romans who started it.
The herb was called Silphium and was a plant probably related to giant fennel or celery. The Greeks cultivated it solely for its resin, but the Romans used it to its fullest, even having used it for the roots.
The Greeks called it Silphio, the Romans Silphium, although they gave it many other names (laserpicium, lasarpicium, etc.). They used it for everything from an aromatic spice for flavor in cooking, to local painkilling ointment, to medicine for many diseases. Although famous throughout the world for its stimulant and contraceptive properties.
It was the Theraeans who discovered it as early as 630 BC when they founded their Greek colony in North Africa, the famous Kyrenia. The Greeks named their colony after the spring Kyri, which was dedicated to the god Apollo, and he gave them the Silphium.
According to legend, Vattos I landed in Cyrenaica and was led by the natives to an area that had a "hole in the sky", probably because it rained a lot. There was a sanctuary of Apollo and Thera decided to build his city in honor of the sacred land.
Apollo gave him the Silphium, a valuable herb that contributed greatly to the transformation of the city into a center of Greek culture in unknown lands, as its commercial exploitation brought wondrous wealth to Kyrenia. The Silphium became so important to the Kyrenian economy that from one point on it appeared on almost every currency in the city! A laconic cup from 565-560 BC (Kylix of Arkesilas) also depicts the king of Kyrenia, Arkesilaos II, overseeing the harvest of the plant, so important was it to the economic survival of the Greek colony. It was the emblem of the city.
Silphium became a staple of every doctor in the Mediterranean Basin for the next 700 years or so. The Egyptians knew this, of course, as their own accounts from the 7th century BC are considered the oldest. And this great culture used it as a medical aid for contraception, but also for just about everything from sore throats and coughs to a cure for leprosy.
Both the Egyptians and the Minoans had a specific ideogram (glyph) that represented the Silphium! Something that underlines its importance for these early Mediterranean cultures. Let's not forget that the Silphium had applications and was used in almost everything, from the stem to the roots and to its precious sap.
There is historical evidence that classical antiquity revolved around Silphium. The Greeks, let's say, loved it as a delicious spice for their food.
As they tell us, it had an intense and spicy flavor, probably similar to garlic, but without its heavy odor. The Greeks tapped its juice for culinary use, while the Romans ate it whole. They even tasted its roots.
The plant was so glorified as a spice that - in both classical and Roman antiquity - people paid dearly for the animals that ate Sylphium, believing that it imparted a better flavor to the meat!
Even recipes have reached our days with the delicious spice: the dramatic poet Alexis tells us that to make beautiful horse mackerel, "take out their gills, rinse them, clean them, open them in two halves, spread them out, flour them, spread them with Silphium, and cover them with cheese, salt, and oregano ". The Platonic philosopher Xenocrates shares with us the secret for delicious shellfish: "We cut them, rinse them, and douse them with Cyrene syrup, aphids, brine, and vinegar, or fresh mint in vinegar and sweet wine".
But Atheneus in "Deipnosofistai" tells us that they ate salted fish, marinated with wine, oil, and Silphium. In Roman times, the herb had become so popular that it appears in almost all the recipes of Kailios Apikios ("On Cooking")!
No one knows how magical the Cyrenaic Peninsula was, where the Silphium grew exclusively. In a narrow coastal strip, about 200 × 50 kilometers, as it has come down to us, the miracle plant came forth. For seven hundred years the Minoans, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and every other people of the Mediterranean tried, but only Cyrenia had the privilege of growing rich on Silphium.
It also had many therapeutic uses, although it is difficult to evaluate its effectiveness in modern medical terms.
Theophrastus Eresios and Dioskouridis Pedanios compared it to "Heraklion Panacea" and told us that the plant was suitable for all diseases.
Undoubtedly, however, it was its contraceptive properties that led the Greeks to favor it and the Romans to revere it. Even Pliny the Elder attests to this when he suggests that Silphium is good for "removing fluids secreted during menstruation." Properties we still find today in its related species, such as parsley.
The herb also appears in Pausanias' "Description of Greece," in a story about the Dioscuri, which he quotes during their stay in the house of Spartan Formion: "For, it so happened that his virgin daughter dwelt therein. From the next day this virgin had disappeared in all her girlish clothes, and in the room were found pictures of the Dioscuri, a table and a Silphium on it ".
The Silphium with its Latin name (laserpicium) is also found in a poem by Catullus to his lover Lesbia, thus playing a clear role in human sexuality.
It is therefore not at all unlikely that it was pharmacologically effective in preventing or even terminating pregnancy. Dioscouridis, on the other hand, recommended it as a contraceptive.
At the same time, its flower was used for the production of perfumes, as the ancients exploited every square inch.
What happened
The Silphium did not survive long, for no one thought of its future. It was the Romans who essentially wiped it out, generalizing its use and over-cultivation.
Even the best animals were fed Cyrenian Silphium for becoming delicious meat and a high price. It was its culinary and especially its contraceptive properties that led to its demise. Sometime around the 1st century AD. it simply stopped growing!
Overfishing and animal hooves destroyed the fragile ecosystem of the Cyrenaic coast. According to the legend handed down to us by Pliny the Elder ("Natural History"), it was the Emperor Nero who tasted the last branch: "For many years there has been no Silphium; if it was found, as far as anyone remembers, it was sent to the Emperor Nero ". And it was sent to him as something curious, as Pliny tells us.
Within a few decades, the already rare Silphium disappeared. Now everyone remembered the times when Julius Caesar came into possession of large quantities of the plant, which he had once given into the treasury of the Roman state. For by then it was worth real silver. After all, the Romans used to say without hesitation: "The sap of the Silphium is worth its weight in dinars"!
Even after its disappearance, of course, it continued to be mentioned in the catalogs of spice plants and went as far as the 8th century AD.
Theophrastus confirms ("History of Plants") that the Silphium could not be cultivated and the fame for its contraceptive properties, which he developed in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC, brought its definitive end. Strabo, in turn, reports that it was the peoples of the desert who destroyed its roots.
Even today, botanists have not been able to identify it, but there have been several speculations about the plant family to which it probably belonged. The fact is that the ancient world could not live without Silphium, and so the men of Alexander found in Persia a similar plant, but it lacked the taste of it.
It was the asafoetida which still exists in India. The Romans at first greeted it with enthusiasm, but soon realized that it was by no means a Silphium. As Dioskouridis ("On the Subject of Medicine"): attests, "Cyrenaic [Silphium] has a very wholesome aroma, which is seldom perceived in the breath. In contrast, asafoetidais less potent and has a worse odor. "
