SILPHIUM

“Even if one just tastes it, at once arouses a humour throughout the body and has a very healthy aroma” – Pedanius Dioscorides, around year 70 BC

Silphium (probably of the genus Ferula) was a plant that grew in the area of Cyrene, present day Libya, and was widely renowned as a spice, medicinal herb and perfume ingredient throughout the empires of the classical antiquity. It was praised by Greek philosophers and writers, as well as Roman emperors and cookbook authors.