silphium

{{short description|Extinct plant used as a seasoning and medicine}}

{{about|the plant that was used in classical antiquity|the modern genus of plants|Silphium (genus){{!}}Silphium (genus)}}

File:Silphium.jpg

Silphium (also known as laserwort or laser; Ancient Greek: {{wikt-lang|grc|σίλφιον}}, {{translit|grc|sílphion}}) is an unidentified plant that was used in classical antiquity as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine.{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170907-the-mystery-of-the-lost-roman-herb |title=The mystery of the lost Roman herb |year=2017 |work=BBC |author=Zaria Gorvett |access-date=2018-08-27 |archive-date=2018-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180517015519/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170907-the-mystery-of-the-lost-roman-herb |url-status=live }}

It was an essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore an image of the plant. The valuable product was the plant's resin, called in Latin laserpicium, lasarpicium or laser (the words Laserpitium and Laser were used by botanists to name genera of aromatic plants, but the silphium plant is not believed to belong to these genera).

The exact identity of silphium is unclear. It was claimed to have become extinct in Roman times. It is commonly believed to be a relative of giant fennel in the genus Ferula.{{cite journal |first1=J.L. |last1=Tatman |title=Silphium, Silver and Strife: A History of Kyrenaika and Its Coinage |journal=Celator |volume=14 |issue=10 |date=October 2000 |pages=6–24}}[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/061013.html Did the ancient Romans use a natural herb for birth control?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061027000920/http://www.straightdope.com/columns/061013.html |date=2006-10-27 }}, The Straight Dope, October 13, 2006{{cite news |last=Grescoe |first=Taras |date=23 September 2022 |title=This miracle plant was eaten into extinction 2,000 years ago—or was it? |work=National Geographic |location= |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/miracle-plant-eaten-extinction-2000-years-ago-silphion |access-date=26 September 2022 |archive-date=25 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220925230246/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/miracle-plant-eaten-extinction-2000-years-ago-silphion |url-status=dead }} The extant plant Thapsia gummifera{{cite journal |last1=Amigues |first1=Suzanne |title=Le silphium - État de la question |trans-title=Silphium - State of the art |language=fr |journal=Journal des Savants |date=2004 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=191–226 |doi=10.3406/jds.2004.1685}} has been suggested as another possibility. Another theory is that it was simply a high quality variety of asafoetida, a common spice in the Roman Empire. The two spices were considered the same by many Romans including the geographer Strabo.{{sfn|Dalby|2000|p=18}}

Silphium was considered invaluable by all who held it. The BBC reports that the plant was sung about by Roman poets and singers, who considered it equivalent to its weight in gold. Historically, Pliny the Elder blamed silphium's valuation on "tax-farmers," and Julius Caesar directly registered silphium as "1500 pounds of laser" in the Roman treasury.{{Cite journal |last=Parejko |first=Ken |date=2003-05-29 |title=Pliny the Elder's Silphium: First Recorded Species Extinction |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.02067.x |journal=Conservation Biology |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=925–927 |doi=10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.02067.x |bibcode=2003ConBi..17..925P |issn=0888-8892|url-access=subscription }}

Identity and extinction

File:Magas as Ptolemaic governor, first reign, circa 300-282 or 275 BC Didrachm.jpg {{circa|300–282/75 BC}}. Reverse: silphium and small crab symbols.]]

The identity of silphium is highly debated. Without a surviving sample, no genetic analysis can be made. It is generally considered to belong to the genus Ferula as an extinct or living species. The extant plants Thapsia gummifera, Ferula tingitana, Ferula narthex, Ferula drudeana, and Thapsia garganica have been suggested as possible identities.{{cite journal |last1=Andrews |first1=Alfred C. |title=The Silphium of the Ancients: A Lesson in Crop Control |journal=Isis |date=1941 |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=232–236 |doi=10.1086/358541 |jstor=330743 |s2cid=144108503}}{{cite journal |last1=Parejko |first1=K |year=2003 |title=Pliny the Elder's Silphium: First Recorded Species Extinction |journal=Conservation Biology |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=925–927 |doi=10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.02067.x |bibcode=2003ConBi..17..925P |s2cid=84007922}} Ferula drudeana, an endemic species found in Turkey, is a candidate for silphium based on appearance from descriptions and on its production of a spice-like gum-resin with supposedly similar properties to silphium.{{Cite journal |last=Miski |first=Mahmut |date=2021-01-06 |title=Next Chapter in the Legend of Silphion: Preliminary Morphological, Chemical, Biological and Pharmacological Evaluations, Initial Conservation Studies, and Reassessment of the Regional Extinction Event |journal=Plants |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=102 |doi=10.3390/plants10010102 |issn=2223-7747 |pmc=7825337 |pmid=33418989|doi-access=free|bibcode=2021Plnts..10..102M }} However, F. drudeana belongs to a lineage from the southern Caspian Sea region with no known connection to Eastern Libya.{{cite journal |title=Phylogenetic positions of seven poorly known species of Ferula (Apiaceae) with remarks on the phylogenetic utility of the plastid TRNH-psbA, TRNS-TRNG, and atpB-RBCL intergenic spacers |year=2018 |last1=Piwczyński |first1=Marcin |last2=Wyborska |first2=Dominika |last3=Gołębiewska |first3=Joanna |last4=Puchałka |first4=Radosław |journal=Systematics and Biodiversity |volume=16 |issue=5 |pages=428–440 |url=https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/6015386 |doi=10.1080/14772000.2018.1442374 |bibcode=2018SyBio..16..428P |s2cid=90391176 |url-access=subscription }}

Theophrastus mentioned silphium as having thick roots covered in black bark, about one cubit (48 cm) long, with a hollow stalk, similar to fennel, and golden leaves like those of celery.

File:Weighing and loading of Silphium at Cyrene. Wellcome L0002417.jpg

The disappearance of silphium is considered the first extinction of a plant or animal species in recorded history.{{cite web |last1=Grescoe |first1=Taras |title=Eat the past to preserve the future |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-to-save-the-future-from-food-insecurity-we-should-look-to-cuisine-of/ |website=The Globe and Mail |access-date=6 March 2024 |date=15 September 2023}} The cause of silphium's supposed extinction is not entirely known but numerous factors are suggested. Silphium had a remarkably narrow native range, about {{convert|125|by|35|mi}}, in the southern steppe of Cyrenaica (present-day eastern Libya)."Off this tract is the island of Platea, which the Cyrenaeans colonized. Here too, upon the mainland, are Port Menelaus and Aziris, where the Cyrenaeans once lived. The Silphium begins to grow in this region, extending from the island of Platea on the one side to the mouth of the Syrtis on the other." (Herodotus, iv.168–198 [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/herod-libya1.html on-line text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130409023843/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/herod-libya1.html |date=2013-04-09 }}) Overgrazing combined with overharvesting have long been cited as the primary factors that led to its extinction.Pliny, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+19.15 XIX, Ch.15] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220928142511/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+19.15&redirect=true |date=2022-09-28 }} However, recent research has challenged this notion, arguing instead that desertification in ancient Cyrenaica was the primary driver of silphium's decline.{{Cite journal |last1=Pollaro |first1=Paul |last2=Robertson |first2=Paul |date=2022 |title=Reassessing the Role of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Extinction of Silphium |journal=Frontiers in Conservation Science |volume=2 |doi=10.3389/fcosc.2021.785962 |issn=2673-611X|doi-access=free|bibcode=2022FrCS....2.5962P }}

Another theory is that when Roman provincial governors took over power from Greek colonists, they over-farmed silphium and rendered the soil unable to yield the type that was said to be of such medicinal value. Theophrastus wrote in Enquiry into Plants that the type of Ferula specifically referred to as "silphium" was odd in that it could not be cultivated.Theophrastus, III.2.1, VI.3.3 He reports inconsistencies in the information he received about this, however.Theophrastus, VI.3.5 This could suggest the plant is similarly sensitive to soil chemistry as huckleberries which, when grown from seed, are devoid of fruit.

Similar to the soil theory, another theory holds that the plant was a hybrid, which often results in very desired traits in the first generation, but second-generation can yield very unpredictable outcomes. This could have resulted in plants without fruits, when planted from seeds, instead of asexually reproducing through their roots.

Pliny reported that the last known stalk of silphium found in Cyrenaica was given to Emperor Nero "as a curiosity".

Ancient medicine

Many medical uses were ascribed to the plant.Pliny, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+22.49 XXII, Ch. 49] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071228025055/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+22.49 |date=2007-12-28 }} It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies.

Hippocrates wrote:{{cite web |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/fistulae.mb.txt |title=On Fistulae, Section 9 |author=Hippocrates, Translated by Francis Adams |access-date=2012-03-25 |archive-date=2012-06-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120603172010/http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/fistulae.mb.txt |url-status=live }}

When the gut protrudes and will not remain in its place, scrape the finest and most compact silphium into small pieces and apply as a cataplasm.

The plant may also have functioned as a contraceptive and abortifacient.{{cite book |last1=Riddle |first1=John M. |title=Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance |date=1992 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-16876-3 |page=58 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1vS85LtlsnIC&pg=PA58 |access-date=2021-09-03 |archive-date=2021-09-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210903210643/https://books.google.com/books?id=1vS85LtlsnIC&pg=PA58 |url-status=live }}

Culinary uses

Silphium was used in Graeco-Roman cooking, notably in recipes presented in Apicius. Some historians have suggested that its use, particularly in the North African region of its origin, was extensive:

Not quite as ubiquitous as liquamen, but just as necessary in the Roman kitchen, was the herb silphium...Life in Cyrenaica revolved around [silphium] to such an extent that the dramatist Antiphanes, in the fourth century BC, made one of his characters groan: "I will not sail back to the place from which we were all carried away, for I want to say goodbye to all—horses, silphium, chariots, silphium stalks, steeple-chasers, silphium leaves, and silphium juice!"{{Cite book |last=Tannahill |first=Reay |title=Food in History |publisher=Stein and Day |year=1973 |isbn=0-8128-1437-1 |location=New York |pages=99}}

Long after its claimed extinction, silphium continued to be mentioned in lists of aromatics copied one from another, until it makes perhaps its last appearance in the list of spices that the Carolingian cook should have at hand—{{lang|la|Brevis pimentorum que in domo esse debeant}} ("A short list of condiments that should be in the home")—by a certain "Vinidarius", whose excerpts of Apicius{{efn|A generic term for a cookery book, as "Webster" is of American dictionaries.}} survive in one 8th-century uncial manuscript. Vinidarius's dates may not be much earlier.Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, Anthea Bell, tr. The History of Food, revised ed. 2009, p. 434.

Hieroglyphs and symbols for silphium

File:Silphium, Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos, 1921.png]]

The Minoans probably used silphium as the visual reference for the hieroglyph psi (File:Greek Psi straight.svg), meaning "plant." It resembles a central shoot flanked by two stalks.{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Arthur |url=http://archive.org/details/cu31924081667796 |title=The palace of Minos : a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustrated by the discoveries at Knossos |date=1921 |publisher=London : Macmillan and Co. |others=Cornell University Library |pages=§92, pp. 215-6}} Minoan fetishes with this geometry are known as psi and phi type figurines, and are also designed for their letter-like shape. This glyph developed into the modern greek psi (Ψ).

Egyptian hieroglyphs for Libyan silphium have also been documented in archeological publications as a balm ingredient that must be dehulled and which produces a sap. In one record, it appears similar to the hieroglyph for branch (𓆱), written to be read from left to right.{{Cite journal |last=Fritschy |first=Wantje |date=June 2021 |title=A New Interpretation of the Early Dynastic so-called 'Year' Labels. 'Balm Labels' and the Preservation of the Memory of the King |journal=The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology |language=en |volume=107 |issue=1–2 |pages=207–224 |doi=10.1177/03075133211060366 |issn=0307-5133|doi-access=free }}

File:Cyrenecoin.jpg

There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape (♥).{{cite journal |last1=Favorito |first1=E. N. |last2=Baty |first2=K. |date=February 1995 |title=The Silphium Connection |journal=Celator |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=6–8}} Silver coins from Cyrene of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE bear a similar design, sometimes accompanied by a silphium plant, and is understood to represent its seed or fruit.{{cite journal |first1=T. V. |last1=Buttrey |authorlink1=Theodore V. Buttrey Jr. |url=https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-coins-and-the-cult/|title=The Coins and the Cult |journal=Expedition |volume=34 |issue=1–2 |date=1992 |pages=59–66 |access-date=2021-09-03 |archive-date=2021-09-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210903165330/https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-coins-and-the-cult/ |url-status=live }} Some plants in the family Apiaceae, such as Heracleum sphondylium, have heart-shaped indehiscent mericarps (a type of fruit).File:Illustration Heracleum sphondylium0.jpg, showing its heart-shaped mericarp]]Contemporary writings help tie silphium to sexuality and love. Silphium appears in Pausanias' Description of Greece in a story of the Dioscuri staying at a house belonging to Phormion, a Spartan:

{{Blockquote|For it so happened that his maiden daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioscuri, a table, and silphium upon it.Pausanias, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book=3:chapter=16&highlight=silphium 3.16.3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225082854/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book=3:chapter=16&highlight=silphium |date=2021-02-25 }}}}

Silphium as laserpicium makes an appearance in a poem (Catullus 7) of Catullus to his lover Lesbia (though others have suggested that the reference here is instead to silphium's use as a treatment for mental illness, tying it to the "madness of love"{{cite journal |last1=Moorhouse |first1=A. C. |title=Two Adjectives in Catullus, 7 |journal=The American Journal of Philology |date=1963 |volume=84 |issue=4 |pages=417–418 |doi=10.2307/293237 |jstor=293237}}{{cite journal |last1=Bertman |first1=Stephen |title=Oral Imagery In Catullus 7 |journal=The Classical Quarterly |date=December 1978 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=477–478 |doi=10.1017/S0009838800035060 |s2cid=170172017}}).

Heraldry

In the Italian military heraldry, {{lang|it|Il silfio d'oro reciso di Cirenaica}} ("Silphium of Cyrenaica, smoothly cut and printed in gold; in blazon: silphium couped or of Cyrenaica") is the symbol granted to units that distinguished themselves in the Western Desert Campaign in North Africa during World War II."Si distinsero i soldati del 28° Reggimento Fanteria "Pavia" il cui scudo reca nel terzo quarto una pianta di silfio d'oro reciso e sormontata da una stella d'argento"." (Gaetano Arena, Inter eximia naturae dona: il silfio cirenaico fra ellenismo e tarda antichità, 2008:13

Araldiz silfio.png |Italian coat of arms {{lang|it|Il silfio d'oro reciso di Cirenaica}}

Coat of arms of Lybia (1940).svg|Silphium depicted on the arms of Italian Libya

In popular culture

Characters in Lindsey Davis's 1998 historical crime novel Two for the Lions travel from Rome to North Africa in search of silphium.{{cite web |title=Two for the Lions |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lindsey-davis/two-for-the-lions/ |website=Kirkus Reviews |access-date=19 March 2024 |language=en |date=1999 | quote=exploring the hills and towns along the African coast ... searching for the herb silphium, a gold mine if found}}

Notes

References

=Footnotes=

=Bibliography=

{{cite book |last=Dalby |first=Andrew |title=Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=9780520227897 |url=https://archive.org/details/dangeroustastess0000dalb}}
Herodotus. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126 The Histories]. II:161, 181, III:131, IV:150–65, 200–05.
Pausanias. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160 Description of Greece] 3.16.1–3
Pliny the Elder. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+toc Natural History]. XIX:15 and XXII:100–06.
{{cite web |last=Tatman |first=John |title=Silphium: Ancient wonder drug? |work=Jencek's Ancient Coins & Antiquities |url=http://ancient-coins.com/resourcedetail.asp?rsc=8 |access-date=2007-02-05 |archive-date=2007-03-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070330044239/http://ancient-coins.com/resourcedetail.asp?rsc=8 |url-status=dead }}
Theophrastus. Enquiry into plants and minor works on odours and weather signs, with an English translation by Sir Arthur Hort, (1916). [https://archive.org/stream/enquiryintoplan04theogoog#page/n202/mode/2up Volume 1 (Books I–V)] and [https://archive.org/details/enquiryintoplant02theouoft Volume 2 (Books VI–IX)] Volume 2 includes the index, which lists silphium (Greek {{lang|el|σιλϕιον}}) on page 476, column 2, 2nd entry.

External links

[http://www.motherearthliving.com/health-and-wellness/herbal-morning-after-pills.aspx Contraception In Ancient Times: Use of Morning-After Pill] by David W. Tschanz
[http://gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com/engl/Silphion.html Silphion] at Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060216030935/http://www.heartsmith.com/guide_history.html The Secret of the Heart]
[http://obotanicoaprendiznaterradosespantos.blogspot.fr/2014/02/bruco-fetido-margotia-gummifera.html Margotia gummifera]
[https://www.floravascular.com/index.php?spp=Ferula%20tingitana Ferula tingitana]

Category:Abortifacients

Category:Spices

Category:Extinct plants

Category:Holocene extinctions

Category:Medicinal plants

Category:National symbols of Libya

Category:Roman cuisine

Category:Ancient Greek cuisine

Category:Edible Apiaceae

Category:Undescribed plant species