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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 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 bore an image of the plant. The valuable product was the plant's resin, called in Latin , lasarpicium, or laser ( 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, but is commonly believed to be a relative of giant fennel in the genus Ferula. Did the ancient Romans use a natural herb for birth control? , The Straight Dope, October 13, 2006 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 geographer Strabo.
Silphium was considered invaluable by all who held it. 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.
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 , 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. 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 on-line text ) Overgrazing combined with overharvesting have long been cited as the primary factors that led to its extinction.Pliny, XIX, Ch.15 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 Ancient Rome 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 Horticulture.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".
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.
Not quite as ubiquitous as Garum, 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.Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, Anthea Bell, tr. The History of Food, revised ed. 2009, p. 434.
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 symbol (♥). 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). , showing its heart-shaped mericarp]]Contemporary writings help tie silphium to Human sexuality and love. Silphium appears in Pausanias' Description of Greece'' in a story of the Dioscuri staying at a house belonging to Phormion, a :
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").
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