Extinct plant used as a seasoning and medicine
Silphium (also known as laserwort or laser; Ancient Greek: , ) is an unidentified plant that was used in classical antiquity as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine.
It was the 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 a picture 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". The extant plant "Thapsia gummifera" 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.
Silphium was considered invaluable by all who held it. The BBC reports that the plant was sung about in Roman poems and songs, 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.
Identity and extinction.
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 currently extant plants "Thapsia gummifera", "Ferula tingitana", "Ferula narthex", "Ferula drudeana", and "Thapsia garganica" have been suggested as possible identities. "Ferula drudeana", an endemic species found in Turkey, is a candidate for silphium based on similarity of appearance in descriptions and production of a spice-like gum-resin with supposedly similar properties to silphium. However, "F. drudeana" belongs to a lineage from the southern Caspian Sea region, with no known connection to Eastern Libya.
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 celery.
The disappearance of silphium is considered the first extinction of a plant or animal species in recorded history. The cause of silphium's supposed extinction is not entirely known but numerous factors are suggested. Silphium had a remarkably narrow native range, about , in the southern steppe of Cyrenaica (present-day eastern Libya). Overgrazing combined with overharvesting have long been cited as the primary factors that led to its extinction. However, recent research has challenged this notion, arguing instead that desertification in ancient Cyrenaica was the primary driver of silphium's decline.
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. He reports inconsistencies in the information he received about this, however. 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. 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:
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.
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!"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— ("A short list of condiments that should be in the home")—by a certain "Vinidarius", whose excerpts of "Apicius" survive in one 8th-century uncial manuscript. Vinidarius's dates may not be much earlier.
Hieroglyphs and symbols for silphium.
The Minoans probably used silphium as the visual reference for the hieroglyph "psi" (), meaning "plant." It resembles a central shoot flanked by two stalks. Minoan fetishes with this geometry are known as psi and phi type figurines, and are also designed for their letter-like shape. This glylph 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.
There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape (♥). Silver coins from Cyrene of the 6th–5th centuries BCE bear a similar design, sometimes accompanied by a silphium plant, and is understood to represent its seed or fruit. Some plants in the family Apiaceae, such as "Heracleum sphondylium", have heart-shaped indehiscent mericarps (a type of fruit).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:
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Silphium as "laserpicium" makes an appearance in a poem () 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").
Heraldry.
In the Italian military heraldry, ("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.
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.
References.
Footnotes.
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