As a flavouring for food, it delighted the most demanding of gourmets. As a medicine, it was prescribed for a remarkable array of ills-including the after-effects of too much rich and highly flavoured food. There鈥檚 even evidence to suggest it found its way into love potions for men who needed perking up a little. Silphium was a plant with many virtues, not least its ability to generate large profits. It鈥檚 no wonder the Cyrenians chose to stamp its image on their coins. The people of Cyrene, a Greek outpost in Libya, had grown rich on the profits from the plant. It grew in profusion outside their city walls and they exported it by the shipload.
A silver 鈥渄idrachm鈥�, on display in the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow, was minted in the 3rd century BC, when Cyrene was flourishing. But just a few years later, silphium had vanished from the city鈥檚 coins. The silphium industry had collapsed and the plant that made Cyrene famous was heading for extinction.
WHEN things were bad, the ancient Greeks headed for Delphi to consult the Oracle. And things were very bad on the island of Thera, a volcanic dot halfway across the Aegean. By the 7th century BC, the population had grown too big for such a small island. The Oracle, so legend says, told the Therans to go to Libya and build a city there. At first the Theran king ignored the advice, but after years of drought and famine, he decided that maybe Libya-wherever that was-might not be such a bad idea after all.
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The first emigrants-鈥渧olunteers鈥� chosen by drawing lots-settled on an offshore island where life was as harsh as it had been at home. Taking yet more advice at Delphi, they upped sticks and sailed to the mainland. There, local tribesmen led them to a place 鈥渨here the sky leaks鈥�-a fertile plateau in the foothills of the Akhdar Mountains. It was 631 BC.
The Therans had fallen on their feet. This part of Libya had a pleasant climate, plenty of rain and good, rich soil. Immigrants flocked to Cyrene and it became one of the great commercial and cultural centres of the ancient world. The surrounding land produced bumper harvests of grains and grapes, olives and onions and an assortment of herbs and spices. The city exported dates, wool and corn. It was renowned for its fine horses and fat sheep. But the city鈥檚 huge wealth stemmed from the discovery of a strange plant which the Greeks called silphium.
Silphium was remarkable. People ate the leaves and stems like cabbage. They pickled the aromatic roots and grated them over their food. Cooks flavoured sauces and salads with sap from the root. Silphium was fed to livestock too-it gave mutton a delicious flavour. The plant had a multitude of other uses: in toothpaste, as a perfume, a hair remover (and restorer), and probably as both aphrodisiac and contraceptive. Sap from the roots had near miraculous medicinal powers, curing everything from flatulence and fever to snakebite and lumbago.
So what was this marvellous plant? Unfortunately, no one knows. It only ever grew in the region around Cyrene and by the end of the 1st century AD it was extinct. From the images on Cyrene鈥檚 coins, silphium was undoubtedly a member of the carrot family, a group full of aromatic and medicinal herbs, such as fennel and coriander, caraway and aniseed. Theophrastus-a reliable botanist who lived in the 4th century BC, when silphium was plentiful-described a sturdy-stemmed plant with a thick root, a leaf like celery and quince-yellow flowers. His description suggests that it was a species of Ferula, a genus that includes giant fennels with trunk-like stems and huge heads of yellow flowers.
Cyrene鈥檚 coins chart the rise and fall of the silphium trade. By the time the colony had begun to mint its own money in the mid-6th century BC, the city had adopted the plant as its emblem and stamped its image on its coins. With a monopoly on such a sought-after plant, Cyrene鈥檚 merchants could name their price and the money poured in to the city鈥檚 coffers. By the middle of the third century BC, however, trade was beginning to drop off and the last coins bearing an image of silphium were minted around 230 BC.
In the intervening years, silphium was much written about. Athenaeus, a Greek gourmet and cookery writer, considered silphium one of the greatest condiments. The historian Herodotus liked it mashed with cheese. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, gave chapter and verse on its curative powers. And the playwright Aristophanes mentions it several times. 鈥淒on鈥檛 you remember when a stalk of silphium was sold so cheap?鈥� says a character in Knights. This suggests that even in Aristophanes鈥檚 time, the 4th century BC, silphium was growing rare and expensive. When the Romans took over Cyrene in 96 BC, silphium had become scarcer still, and certainly wasn鈥檛 important enough to feature on any of their coins.
By this time, too, a cheaper substitute had appeared on the market-a related plant from the east sold as 鈥淎sian silphium鈥�. This was undoubtedly Ferula assa-foetida, a plant with a less delicate flavour and an overpoweringly sulphurous smell. Asafoetida is prized today in India and Iran as a condiment, a medicine and a fresh vegetable. But to Rome鈥檚 discerning consumers, Asian silphium simply didn鈥檛 compare with the real thing. Scribonius Largus-a Roman celebrity chef in the 1st century AD-wrote recipes that called for Cyrenian silphium, if it was available. But that wasn鈥檛 often. When a small batch of silphium arrived in Rome in 61 BC, it caused a stir. Before the end of the next century, the plant had vanished.
So what drove Cyrene鈥檚 famous plant to extinction? The Roman geographer Strabo blamed barbarians with a grudge, who spitefully ripped up the roots. Pliny blamed the publiciani-sheep grazers who leased common land and allowed their animals to grow fat on silphium. But the most likely reason for the plant鈥檚 demise was that the Cyrenians harvested it to oblivion. For centuries they gathered silphium from the wild, never bothering to cultivate it. Theophrastus reported unsuccessful attempts to grow it in other parts of Greece-blaming the failure on the difficulty of moving plants with such large roots. Yet plants of this family produce prodigious amounts of seed. Indeed, Theophrastus described how the autumn sirocco winds dispersed silphium seed, which sprouted with the first winter rain.
At first, Cyrene regulated the silphium harvest. The city鈥檚 rulers set strict limits on the amount that could be gathered. But later, governors appointed to one-year terms in office cashed in by selling leases with no restrictions. The result was inevitable. Today, silphium has been resurrected as the logo of the IUCN Species Survival Commission鈥檚 specialist group on medicinal plants. It鈥檚 a stark warning to take better care of the plants we still have left.