Silphium

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 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 considered a strong candidate for silphium based on several unusual shared features, such as the plant morphology, yellow foliage of mature plants, slow growth, resistance to cultivation from seed, and phytochemistry, including its production of an aromatic, spice-like gum resin with properties similar to those reported for silphium. However, F. drudeana belongs to a lineage from the southern Caspian Sea region with no known connection to eastern Libya. This species is also considered highly imperiled, with few surviving populations, and threats posed by overharvesting for use as an aphrodisiac.

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.

The disappearance of silphium is considered to be 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 125 by, 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. Recent research has challenged this notion, though, 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 from Greek colonists, they overfarmed 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 hybrids are often sterile, so it is possible that silphium could not be propagated from seeds at all (which would indeed make cultivation considerably more difficult), but instead only asexually 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:

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—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 survive in one eighth-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 ([[File:Greek Psi straight.svg|15px|]]), 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 glyph developed into the modern Greek psi (Ψ).

Egyptian hieroglyphs for Libyan silphium have also been documented in archaeological 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.

Some speculation exists about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape (♥). 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. Some plants in the family Apiaceae, such as Heracleum sphondylium, have heart-shaped indehiscent mericarps (a type of fruit).[[File:Illustration Heracleum sphondylium0.jpg|thumb|right|Drawing of [[Heracleum sphondylium]], 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:

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").

Heraldry

In the Italian military heraldry, 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.

Araldiz silfio.png |Italian coat of arms 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.

Notes

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Herodotus. The Histories. II:161, 181, III:131, IV:150–65, 200–05.
• Pausanias. Description of Greece 3.16.1–3
• Pliny the Elder. Natural History. XIX:15 and XXII:100–06.
• Theophrastus. Enquiry into plants and minor works on odours and weather signs, with an English translation by Sir Arthur Hort, (1916). Volume 1 (Books I–V) and Volume 2 (Books VI–IX) Volume 2 includes the index, which lists silphium (Greek σιλϕιον) on page 476, column 2, 2nd entry.

References

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12. "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. Silphium begins to grow in this region, extending from the island of Platea on the one side to the [[Gulf of Sidra. mouth of the Syrtis]] on the other." (Herodotus, iv.168–198 [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/herod-libya1.html on-line text] {{Webarchive. link. (2013-04-09 ))
13. link. (2022-09-28)
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16. Theophrastus, VI.3.5
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28. (1963). "Two Adjectives in Catullus, 7". The American Journal of Philology.
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30. "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
31. (1999). "Two for the Lions".