Silphium was one of the most prized plants in the ancient Mediterranean world because it did almost everything. It worked as a contraceptive, flavored Roman cuisine, treated coughs, functioned as an aphrodisiac, and generated so much wealth for the city of Cyrene in North Africa that they stamped its image on their coins. The Romans considered it worth its weight in silver, and when it finally went extinct, the last known stalk was reportedly sent to Emperor Nero as a curiosity.
Birth Control in the Ancient World
The single most important reason people valued silphium was its apparent effectiveness as a contraceptive. Greeks and Romans at the colony of Cyrene in modern-day Libya used it specifically for this purpose, grinding up its heart-shaped seeds or leaves and ingesting them to prevent pregnancy. Its juice could also be used to induce abortions, making it a versatile tool for reproductive control at a time when reliable options were essentially nonexistent.
These weren’t just folk remedies. John M. Riddle, a historian at North Carolina State University who studied ancient contraceptive plants extensively, found that modern scientific analysis of related species suggests a good proportion of these plant-based medicines probably worked. Ferula tingitana, a close relative of silphium that still grows in Libya, has documented effects on the menstrual cycle. The fact that silphium commanded such extraordinary prices for centuries suggests that people experienced real, repeatable results.
A Staple of Roman Cooking
Silphium wasn’t reserved for the medicine cabinet. It appeared regularly in Roman recipes as a flavor enhancer, showing up in the famous cookbook attributed to Apicius, the closest thing the Roman world had to a culinary bible. One recipe calls for silphium juice alongside pepper, lovage, and celery seed in a dish of fried fish, oysters, and fresh cheese mixed with milk and eggs. The plant’s resin, called laser or laserpicium, was grated into dishes much the way you might use a spice today.
Its flavor profile is lost to history, but ancient writers consistently noted its intoxicating smell. Modern analysis of Ferula drudeana, a Turkish plant that some researchers believe is silphium’s closest living match, identified a compound called shyobunone that acts on receptors in the brain and may be responsible for that distinctive aroma. Whatever silphium tasted like, it was clearly addictive enough to keep demand high for centuries.
Medicine Beyond Contraception
Ancient doctors prescribed silphium for a range of ailments. It served as a cough suppressant and was used as an aphrodisiac, with its juice either drunk or applied directly. Recent chemical analyses of Ferula drudeana’s root extracts have identified 30 distinct bioactive compounds, many with cancer-fighting and anti-inflammatory properties. While we can’t confirm these are the same compounds silphium contained, the overlap between ancient medical claims and modern phytochemistry in related species is striking.
The Economic Engine of Cyrene
Silphium didn’t just help individuals. It built a city. Cyrene, a Greek colony on the Libyan coast, owed much of its wealth and regional power to the silphium trade. The plant was so central to the city’s identity that Cyrenean silver coins from the 6th and 5th centuries BCE featured silphium stalks and its distinctive heart-shaped seed pods. Romans valued silphium “worth its weight in denarii,” their standard silver coins, placing it among the most expensive commodities in the ancient economy.
This extreme value created a problem. Silphium grew wild in a narrow coastal strip of North Africa and stubbornly refused to be farmed. The ancient botanist Theophrastus declared that silphium “did not admit to cultivation,” and Pliny claimed that any attempt to sow it would leave the ground “quite desolate and barren.” A plant that could not be cultivated but was in enormous demand across the entire Mediterranean was on a collision course with extinction.
Why It Disappeared
The very qualities that made silphium so valuable destroyed it. For a long time, scholars blamed straightforward overharvesting: too many people wanted the plant, and they pulled it out of the ground faster than it could grow back. Nomadic groups in the region also deliberately destroyed silphium roots, possibly in retaliation against Cyrenean control of the land. Livestock grazing further reduced wild populations.
But more recent research points to a deeper cause. Widespread deforestation and cropland expansion around Cyrene accelerated desertification, fundamentally changing the local climate and eliminating the conditions silphium needed to germinate and grow. Conservation efforts did exist: the Cyreneans tried fencing off silphium stands to keep livestock out and imposed strict harvest regulations. These measures failed because they addressed the symptoms, not the underlying environmental collapse. By the first century CE, silphium was effectively gone.
The Heart Symbol Connection
One of the most intriguing legacies of silphium is its possible link to the modern heart symbol. The plant’s seeds were distinctly heart-shaped, and because silphium was so closely associated with love, sex, and contraception, some historians believe its seed shape became the template for the stylized heart we use today. Cyrenean coins clearly depict this shape, and the association between the symbol and romance may trace directly back to a plant people once used to manage their love lives.
A Possible Rediscovery
Silphium may not be entirely lost. In 2021, Mahmut Miski, a professor of plant medicine at Istanbul University, published a paper arguing that Ferula drudeana, a rare plant growing near Mount Hasan in central Turkey, closely matches ancient descriptions and coin depictions of silphium. The plant has thick, branching roots similar to ginseng, frond-like leaves, a grooved stalk that rises to clusters of flowers, and papery fruits shaped like inverted hearts.
Miski first encountered Ferula drudeana in 1983 but didn’t begin connecting it to silphium until nearly 20 years later. The two known Turkish populations, separated by 150 miles, are genetically identical, which suggests humans deliberately propagated them rather than the plant spreading naturally. Like the ancient accounts of silphium, Ferula drudeana is extremely difficult to transplant. Miski’s team could only propagate it using cold stratification, a technique that mimics winter conditions to trick seeds into germinating. The plants are slow growers: mature specimens are believed to be around 15 years old.
Perhaps the most evocative detail came during fieldwork in May 2021, when Miski observed that insects drawn to the plant’s sap began to mate, echoing the ancient claim that silphium was an aphrodisiac. Whether Ferula drudeana truly is the lost silphium of Cyrene remains unproven, since no preserved specimen of the original plant exists for comparison. But the morphological, chemical, and behavioral parallels are closer than any candidate proposed before.