Silphium
Silphium (also known as laserwort or laser; Ancient Greek: σίλφιον, sílphion) is an unidentified plant that was used in classical antiquity as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine.
[1][2] 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 a picture of the plant.
[12] 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.
Silphium had a remarkably narrow native range, about 125 by 35 miles (201 by 56 km), in the southern steppe of Cyrenaica (present-day eastern Libya).
[3] However, recent research has challenged this notion, arguing instead that desertification in ancient Cyrenaica was the primary driver of silphium's decline.
[15] 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.
Hippocrates wrote:[19] 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.
[25] 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.
[26] 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: For it so happened that his maiden daughter was living in it.
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.
