A Seed of Silphium, Ferula drudeana, Cyrenian coin, 6th century BC
Messalina’s likenesses had been obliterated, defaced, destroyed by the diktat of the Roman Senate, damnatio memoriae: we will never know what she looked like.
What we think we do know is that she must have been abominably attractive and most certainly oversexed, “hypersexual”. Because of her position as the young wife of an elderly emperor, the pre-occupied and distré Claudius, with super easy access to a ridiculous excess of wealth and power, she habitually behaved as badly as she wished – greedily salacious and acquisitive.
Questions arise.
Messalina had had two children by Claudius before he was dragged from his hiding place by armed thugs and forcibly propelled into the role of Emperor. As far as is known, she had had no further pregnancies despite an incomputable number of encounters. According to Juvenal, apart from the abundant lovers, she frequently employed herself at an earthy Roman bordello under the pseudonym “She-Wolf”.
Her obsessive and tireless pursuit of sexual adventure, even taking into account later political hyperbole, was truly phenomenal.
A modern psychiatrist would make a spot diagnosis of psychopathy – lack of empathy, manipulative behaviour, impulsivity, irresponsibility, lack of remorse. These symptoms concur with “antisocial personality disorder”. Sufferers would not be inclined to seek professional advice.
But, how did Messalina side step further pregnancies and serious venereal diseases in her ten year career? Where did her overriding sexual energy come from?
***
The answers must lie in silphium, a tall and vigorous yellow flowered plant, a relative of the giant fennel in the genus of Ferula.
Laser e silphio… inter eximia naturae dona numeratum… Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, XXII. il.
“Laser and silphium… among the most precious gifts of nature.”
The silphium resin, “laser”, was enormously popular and horrendously expensive. Although used freely as a condiment as it smelt and tasted so very good, its true value was in its medicinal properties, especially in its efficacy as a contraceptive and abortifacient, and in its potency as a sexual stimulant – it was a powerful aphrodisiac.
Laser promoted love.
The heart shaped silphium seed figured prominently on the coinage of Cyrenaica, a Greek colony on the coast of North Africa, now in Libya.
The perennial wild plant grew exclusively on a small patch of fertile land measuring 125 by 30 miles, the tough black roots springing to life in response to the sudden annual downpours of the “black rain”.
Already known to pharaonic Egypt, the ancient Greeks called it “silphion”. It made the population of Cyrene astonishingly wealthy. 2500 years ago, Rome subdued Cyrene and became the beneficiary of the Latinised “silphium”, by then worth its weight in gold.
Due to subsequent gross mismanagement, silphium was heavily over-harvested, and was allowed to become the favourite food of the superabundant goat – and it made them taste an awful lot better.
The “last straw” of silphium was sent to the Emperor Nero as a curiosity.
***
Many had attempted to grow silphium, but apparently all had failed. It was declared extinct.
In 2021, Professor Mahmut Miski of Istanbul University published his paper “Next Chapter in the Legend of Silphion” (PMID 33418989), carrying an account of the rediscovery of the newly named Ferula drudeana. The tiny wild populations of silphium had been found in three walled locations, all in former Greek villages in the Turkish region of Cappadocia. The villagers now have strict instructions as to how to care for their invaluable assets.
Close examination of silphium’s multiplicity of chemical constituents continues.
***
Viagra, sildenafil, and its close relatives Cialis, Levitra and Spedra are not aphrodisiacs: they promote the efficacy of the arousal stimuli arising from the brain, magnifying their effect on erectile tissues by improving the dilation of their arteries. Boys and girls share embryonic erectile tissues. Boys develop a penis, girls develop a clitoris. Both have two corpora cavernosa and a single glans and prepuce, foreskin. Without going into too much detail, there are profound changes in the vaginal walls as arousal increases; the inner two thirds of the vagina widening to accept the semen, the outer third stiffening to grip the penis.
We are well designed to enjoy ourselves – and to procreate – before it’s too late. Other problems do, however, continue to intervene: guilt is one, fear is another, both being played upon by politics, past and present.
***
A pre-Viagra British Army mess song goes –
Your spooning days are over
Your pilot light is out
What used to be your sex appeal
Is now your water spout
You used to be embarrassed
To make the thing behave
For every bloody morning it
Stood up to watch you shave
But now that you are growing old
It sure gives you the blues
To see the thing hang down your leg
And watch you shine your shoes
***
Coffee, chocolate, all sorts of herbs, assorted synthetic illicits, and of course the Viagras, all have been claimed to increase sexual desire. You wish. The only truly profoundly effective sexual stimulant is our very own testosterone. This vital hormone keeps everybody, boys and girls, fit, bright, strong, energetic, tough boned, disease resistant, emotionally stable and fond of fucking – give or take a year or two. Inadequate testosterone promotes disorders, diseases and an early death – above all impotence.
The earliest pharaohs had to prove to the public their fitness, their ability to fight, along with all those they wished to lead in battle. A decrepit leader, a “Hitler with only one ball”, was not acceptable. Dead pharaohs were wrapped in bandages interlayered with the laser seeds to see them comfortably through their long after-life.
As we have no silphium readily to hand, can we rely upon our testosterone to do its stuff?
At menopause, periods stop at an average of 51, but symptoms can occur months if not years before, usually accompanied by irregularity of the periods. It is not just that the ovaries cease to secrete oestrogen, they will have failed to produce adequate testosterone some time before.
Men’s testosterone production peaks around the age of 33, and then slowly declines over their lifetime. Some symptoms of low testosterone will be evident in 50% of men at age 50.
Middle aged men are starting to appreciate that testosterone supplementation can hugely benefit their quality of life, and, more importantly, can enable a long and healthy older age.
Testosterone supplementation for women had long been scorned by male gynaecologists. Professor John Studd bravely pioneered the use of testosterone in hormone replacement therapy. He told us of Isaac Baker Brown and Charles Brown-Séquard, both distinguished mid-19th century medical practitioners, who had advocated clitoridectomy to treat masturbation which they claimed caused “melancholia, paralysis, blindness and even death.” (PMID: 18075842).
Isaac Baker Brown was “struck off” by his colleagues in 1867.
Some modern medical practitioners have been using, “off label”, very small doses of male testosterone supplements to treat symptomatic perimenopausal women, especially those with low sexual desire. This, of course, is perfectly legal, but it has been difficult to judge accurately the tiny dosages required.
As of this year, Androfeme Cream has been available privately in the UK – imported from Australia. Easy to measure and apply to the skin, the cream contains 5mg of testosterone per 0.5ml.
As the manufacturer states, Androfeme improves:
- * Sexual desire
- * Pleasure
- * Orgasm
- * Responsiveness
- * Self-image
That can’t be too bad! We can obviously wait a bit longer for our laser.
