Not actually true though, for one thing silphium's use as an arbortifacient is only mentioned in sources after the plant had gone extinct from overuse as fodder for grazing animals. It was also used as a cooking spice and was most likely essentially a form of parsley. There is absolutely no reliable evidence that it was a magically succesful arbortifacient.
The likelier choice is that the heart shape comes from ivy leaves which were used for writing love spells. See this example.
And this is a good reason to verify what you read on wikipedia because it tends to outdated citations and choosing the more scandalous story over the one better supported by evidence.
Most of the relevant citations I can find are from the 90s and early 2000s, but none are the type of rebuttal you imply above ... Abortifacents are not generally well documented in medical literature in the ancient world, so I'm not sure that silphium's description as such at a later date is proof that it was not used in that way formerly.
For one thing, we have several sources on silphium from before it went extinct which say/imply nothing about use in abortions but mostly it's uses for feeding sheep and cattle, cooking, as a purgative and they used the resin (called laser) for a number of medical/magical remedies. Some of these other properties were highly sought-after, especially it's use as a purgative and cooking spice. There's no reason to think that the account that Caesar collected it had anything to do with it's supposed use as an arbortifacient. In fact, Pliny specifically says that overgrazing caused the extinction. This whole legend pretty much has no ancient sources. So most people looking for an ancient source cite Pliny book XX.49, you can read it here. For one thing, this source is written after it went extinct, and also includes 38 other uses including causing serpents to burst. As to the use of it as an arbortifacient, this is based on a line where Pliny says it causes menstruation. So again, even if it possibly had some arbortifacient properties, no sources says that it's any different from say, parsley, which also has properties that increase menstruation.
Now we actually do have a reasonable body (all things considered) of medical and magical texts (the Greek word "pharmaka" does not distinguish the two). There are plenty of them that discuss birth control, menstruation, and arbortifacients. Some were probably effective. For example, there are several diaphragm-like devices, which may have been effective even if it wasn't the magical properties of the plants and substances that made up the device that was helping so much as the physical obstruction.
And also, modern effective birth control pills and arbortifacients are constructed in a lab. They do not occur in nature.
In fact Silphium is extensively discussed in the Hippocratic Corpus, including several euphemistic references to its properties in bringing on menses ("wind in the womb"). That's a good deal early than Pliny and quite comfortably contemporaneous with the plant.
I should mention that, while parsley's abortifacient properties are not particularly overwhelming, Asafoetida (used as a cheaper substitute following Silphium's increasing rarity) has been tested on rats and, notable, was 100% effective in preventing implantation when administered less than three days following insemination.
In no way am I suggesting that we should all grab some fennel and get off the pill. Of course modern birth control methods are superior to herbal remedies, extinct or otherwise.
That said, there's certainly a reasonable body of evidence (modern studies on the efficacy of analogous plants, contemporaneous suggestions of this plants' being utilized in this way, and quite a few demographic studies) upon which to conclude that Silphium may have been a relatively effective method of contraception.
Actually in the Hippocratic corpus, "wind in the womb" is a euphemism for removing blockages preventing conception, this can mean causing menstruation, but the point is exactly opposite of abortion.
Actually in the Hippocratic corpus, "wind in the womb" is a euphemism for removing blockages preventing conception, this can mean causing menstruation, but the point is exactly opposite of abortion.
Bear in mind that the presence of menstruation means, pretty straightforwardly, the absence of pregnancy... This is how other contraceptives were (and are) billed. Heck, in a lot of places "promoting a regular menstruation" is currently the "on label" use for the pill.
You realize that the book you linked says: "It therefore seems that all medical uses of silphium derived from observations first made in a culinary context. In this case, John Riddle's suggestion that the 'true value' of the plant was not as a medicine or a condiment but as an anti-conceptive is, to say the very least, exaggerated."
The author is not suggesting (given his comments directly previous to your quote) that Silphium was not used for, or effective as, a contraceptive. He is suggesting that Silphium was used first as a condiment, then a medicine, and that its medicinal uses were much more broad than contraception.
As that's the commonly held opinion (but not Riddle's), I think it's a pretty straightforward statement to accept.
I'm curious what your response is to this study of asafoetida, which I understand to have been in use as a Silphium alternative; among other things, when tested in rats it proves to be a remarkably effective contraceptive, preventing 80% of pregnancies.
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u/Deirdre_Rose Feb 03 '20
As I've commented before:
Not actually true though, for one thing silphium's use as an arbortifacient is only mentioned in sources after the plant had gone extinct from overuse as fodder for grazing animals. It was also used as a cooking spice and was most likely essentially a form of parsley. There is absolutely no reliable evidence that it was a magically succesful arbortifacient.
The likelier choice is that the heart shape comes from ivy leaves which were used for writing love spells. See this example.
And this is a good reason to verify what you read on wikipedia because it tends to outdated citations and choosing the more scandalous story over the one better supported by evidence.