Silphium

This article covers the extinct plant called Silphium; for the modern Silphium genus, see rosinweed.

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Silphium (also known as silphion or laser) was a plant of the genus Ferula. Generally considered to be an extinct "giant fennel" (although some claim that the plant is really Ferula tingitana), it once formed the crux of trade from the ancient city of Cyrene for its use as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant (illustration, right).

Aside from its uses in Greco-Roman cooking (as in recipes by Apicius), many medical uses were ascribed to the plant. It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. Chiefly among its medical uses, according to Pliny the Elder, was its role as a herbal contraceptive. Given that many species in the parsley family have estrogenic properties, and some (such as Wild carrot) have been found to work as an abortifacient, it is quite possible that the plant was pharmacologically active in the prevention or termination of pregnancy.

The plant grew along a narrow coastal area, about 125 by 35 miles, in Cyrenaica (in present-day Libya). Legend said that it was a gift from the god Apollo. It was used widely by most ancient Mediterranean cultures; the Romans considered it "worth its weight in denarii." Speculation abounds as to the cause of its extinction; much of it rests on a sudden demand for animals who had grazed on the plant, for some supposed effect on the quality of the meat. Overgrazing combined with overharvesting likely led to its extinction. The climate of the maghreb has been drying over the millennia, and desertification may also have been a factor.

There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape. The Catholic Church claims that the symbol of the heart began in the 1600s when Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque had a vision of a heart shape inside a crown of thorns. However, the symbol is present in stained glass works from far earlier than that. The symbol is remarkably similar to the Egyptian "heart soul" (ab). The sexual nature of that concept, combined with the widespread use of silphium in ancient Egypt for birth control, and the fact that the seeds of silphium are shaped like a heart, leads to speculation that the character for ab may have been derived from the shape of the silphium seed.

The reason for silphium's supposed extinction is not entirely known. One theory is that when Roman provincial governors took over power from Greek colonists who had democratically ruled Cyrene for decades, their rapacious appetite for maximizing the profits of their provinces (as well documented in Cicero's Ad Verrem), led them to over-farm silphium and render the soil unable to yield the type that was said to be of such medicinal value. For Theophrastus reports that the type of ferula specifically referred to as "silphium" was odd in that it only grew in the wild, but could not be successfully grown as a crop in tilled soil. The validity of this report is questionable, however, as Theophrastus was merely passing on a report from another source. Another theory is that the exported product "silphium" (which was exported in the form of a sort of gum) was not derived soley from the plant itself but also incorporated insect guts containing the chemical cantharidin. In order to make the exported product palatable to Greek tastes, its insect component was not advertised. When Roman governors took over they brought in slave labor to handle the production of silphium, but the slaves did not know how to make the proper gum, and so "silphium" went extinct. The third theory that holds weight is that marauding Jews who disapproved of the Cyrenaic philosophical school of "hedonism" (makes sense that hedonism would start in the capitol of birth control) came through and massacred everyone who knew how to make the silphium resin, and possibly destroyed all the crops as well, throughout the region. There are records of Jews killing mass people in this area, but it is not known to be related to silphium.

In any case it is likely that the true nature of silphium will remain a mystery for a while longer, since Cyrene is in modern-day Libya, making doing archaeological research there difficult. The notion of mixing cantharidin with ferula to produce "silphium" resin is a theory of J.S. Gilbert. Note that cantharidin is toxic to humans and much like pennyroyal tea, the ingestion of a small amount of it would not necessarily kill a grown human, but it would certainly kill a developing embryo.

External links

• John Tatman, "Silphium: ancient wonder drug?" (http://ancient-coins.com/articles/silphium/silphium2.htm)
• Silphium and Ancient Roman Cookery at Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages (http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Silphion.html)de:Silphium

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