Caesar’s favourite herb was the Viagra of ancient Rome. Until climate change killed it off

Perfume, tonic – even love potion – silphium was prized by the ancient Romans, but in its success lay the seeds of its own downfall

By James Tapper
The Guardian
May 15, 2022

Excerpt:

Of all the mysteries of ancient Rome, silphium is among the most intriguing. Romans loved the herb as much as we love chocolate. They used silphium as perfume, as medicine, as an aphrodisiac and turned it into a condiment, called laser, that they poured on to almost every dish. It was so valuable that Julius Caesar stashed more than half a tonne in his treasury.

Yet it became extinct less than a century later, by the time of Nero, and for nearly 2,000 years people have puzzled over the cause.

Researchers now believe it was the first victim of man-made climate change – and warn that we should heed the lesson of silphium or risk losing plants that are the basis of many modern flavours.

Paul Pollaro and Paul Robertson of the University of New Hampshire say their research, published in Frontiers in Conservation Science, shows that urban growth and accompanying deforestation changed the local microclimate where silphium grew.

“You’ll often see the narrative that it [became extinct] because of a mix of over-harvesting and also over-grazing – sheep were very fond of it and it made the meat more valuable,” Pollaro said. “Our argument is that regardless of how much was harvested, if the climate was changing, silphium was going to go extinct anyway.”

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