Intoxication in the Ancient Greek and Roman World 1666920142, 9781666920147

Citation preview

Intoxication in the Ancient Greek and Roman World

Intoxication in the Ancient Greek and Roman World Alan Sumler

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2023 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sumler, Alan, author.   Title: Intoxication in the ancient Greek and Roman world / Alan Sumler.   Description: Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.  Identifiers: LCCN 2023043824 (print) | LCCN 2023043825 (ebook) | ISBN 9781666920147 (cloth) | ISBN 9781666920154 (ebook)   Subjects: LCSH: Intoxication--Greece--History. | Intoxication--Rome--History. | Psychotropic drugs--Greece--History. | Psychotropic drugs--Rome--History. | Drinking customs--Greece--History. | Drinking customs--Rome--History.  Classification: LCC GN411 .S86 2023  (print) | LCC GN411  (ebook) | DDC 362.290938--dc23/eng/20231019  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023043824 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023043825 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

To my wife and love Sarah Sumler. Together we explore the mysteries of the universe.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction

1

Chapter 1: Mythological Drugs



11

Chapter 2: Philosophical Drugs



35

Chapter 3: Hellebore



55

Chapter 4: Mandrake



73

Chapter 5: Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh Chapter 6: Wine



95 121

Chapter 7: Other Settings of Intoxication and Modern Biotech Applications 143 Bibliography Index

149

157

About the Author



161

vii

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Carl Ruck and the anonymous reader from Lexington. Without your comments, the book would not be possible. I give thanks to Sarah Sumler, who was a researcher and reader for the project. I would also like to thank my family, my mother Sharon, my brother Jason, and my late father Bob for their continued support on this research. The cover image features a giant head of Dionysus who is cared for by two comic actors. The image invokes the spirit of ancient intoxication. I thank the Cleveland Museum of Art for their generous permission to use the image. Red-Figure Bell-Krater (Mixing Vessel): Bust of Dionysos and Comic Actors (A); Dionysos, Satyr, Maenad (B), c. 390–380 BC. Attributed to Choregos Painter (South Italian, Apulian, active c. 390–380 BC). The Cleveland Museum of Art John L. Severance Fund 1989.73. https:​//​www​.clevelandart​ .org​/art​/1989​.73.

ix

Introduction

The following research considers psychotropic plants, types of intoxication, and appearances of drug usage in the ancient Greek and Roman world. The exploration includes narrations of intoxication and attitudes toward it. The Greek symposium and Roman convivium, parties where people drank wine, were traditional scenes of consumption and intoxication, but there are other recreational settings and potent intoxicants worth considering. The book includes narrations and images of intoxication found outside the drinking party. These settings include religion, magic, artistic or intellectual inspiration, and recreational usage.1 Ancient medical writings recognized psychoactive plant overdose and drug-induced mania or madness as common medical conditions. Medicine often used these psychotropic plants in its treatments, while also curing those overdosing on the same substances. The work will explore these settings of intoxication and survey ancient opinions about using psychotropic plants. SETTINGS OF INTOXICATION The use of psychotropic plants may be found in ancient Greek and Roman religion.2 Psychotropic incense was fumigated and inhaled at religious events and festivals. It was also inhaled at the meetings of government assemblies. It created a light high and stupor, which produced religious silence and awe in the participants. It allowed the audience to feel the influence or power of the deities.3 The same psychotropic incenses are used in ancient magic to induce visions, dreams, divination, and long states of altered consciousness.4 Religious occasions featured wine, which contained psychotropic plants.5 Religious sacrifices, festivals, and public performances featured the consumption of wine. It was a common ingredient in magical practice and used as a vehicle to ingest other ingredients. Medical writings recommended 1

2

Introduction

wine as a method for administering other drugs. Medical practice also included the fumigation of incense. Some religious events, like the Eleusinian Mysteries, featured secret potions (kykeon), which induced visions and altered states of mind for the participants. The practice of magic required the ingestion of psychotropic ingredients so that the user experienced mania or madness, intense visions, and communion with a deity. Sometimes the magician or priest used psychotropic plants to induce a trancelike state and appear to communicate the will of the gods to the audience. In other practices, the user sat at home and underwent states of mania and trance for self-enlightenment and personal spirituality. Some formulations of kykeon were used in medicine. Narrations about psychotropic plant usage and intoxication from ancient writers like Theophrastus, Pliny, Dioscorides, Athenaeus, and Plutarch reveal that drugs were used in different recreational settings. These authors tell stories of wild parties lasting all day, multiday parties, deadly drinking contests, and the use of funnels to accelerate drinking. There are stories about people using psychotropics for artistic and intellectual inspiration. Some people were famous for using substances all day as a lifestyle choice. There are scenes where shepherds are hanging around the drug dealers in the markets having contests of drug usage. There were taverns, inns, and wine bars, where people consumed wine and psychotropic substances at all hours. Extracts and raw materials of psychoactive plants were available for sale at the open markets of the ancient world. Drug dealers sold the items and gave advice about using them. Drugs often contained multiple ingredients and were adulterated. Some items, like frankincense and myrrh, were imported to Greece and Rome through trade routes.6 Other items were grown on farms or in the wild locally. Drug dealers and root cutters were early experts on the psychotropic properties of plants and ways to use them.7 The intellectual tradition in ancient Greek and Roman world had codified and rationalized the study of plants, including their properties. The ancient understanding of the effects of plants is based on their understanding of the human body and the diagnosis of illness, i.e., the humoral system.8 Detailed writings about the properties of plants may be seen in the surviving writings of Hippocrates, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen, and many other ancient writings, including treatises on agriculture. They knew how these plants affected the human body and what ailments they could treat. Ancient writers, when covering plants, always warned readers when the plant is psychotropic or deadly and how to safely extract it. There is an abundance of ancient medical writings on psychotropic plants, which were used on their own or as ingredients in other drugs. These plants were useful for treating physical and mental symptoms. The ancients were accustomed to treat mental illness with the understanding that a mind-altering drug can cure

Introduction

3

a mind alteration. These plants were also used to treat drug induced mania, which implies a commonality of people overdosing. Wine, the most used drug in the ancient world, was weak and had a low alcohol content. The methods of fermentation were substandard. The ancients put other plants into their wine to improve the taste and the potency. Wine contained psychotropic ingredients. They were added to the wine at the time of production. Additional ingredients might be added before consumption. Unmixed wine was extremely intoxicating and deadly because of the psychotropic ingredients. Wine was diluted with water so that it was safe to drink. A variety of types of intoxication are found within narrations of overindulgence of wine. The drugs in the wine set the mood for the party. RESEARCH METHOD The work considers the following psychotropic plants: hellebore, mandrake, thorn apple, deadly nightshade, henbane, opium poppy, darnel containing ergot, cannabis, frankincense, and myrrh.9 All of them have psychotropic alkaloids, which cause intoxication. Some of them are deadly and were used to poison others. These plants appear often in ancient Greek and Roman literature. There are some psychotropic plants, which are mentioned in passing or left out altogether from the research, including coriander, saffron, rue, bdella, storax, wormwood, and ox-tongue. Although these items have many references in ancient medicine, there are fewer mentions in other types of literature. Any one of them could be added to wine or used for mood enhancement. The list of plants claimed to be psychotropic by ancient writers, is rather long. Medical writers, like Dioscorides, described all plants used in medicine and society. They mentioned the psychotropic properties of plants. It was important for the practitioner to know the side effects of the plant. The survey of ancient references to intoxication was completed by looking at all available references to these plants and associated phrases of intoxication in the ancient Greek and Roman canon of surviving works, including the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Loeb Classical Library, and Perseus. The research covers plants and drugs thatwere commonly used and widely available and for which there are many sources testifying to them. It does not include every reference to a given plant; rather, the work focuses on narratives concerning intoxication or important information about the plant, like its psychotropic effects. It leaves out many medical and poetic references. For instance, it leaves out images where the opium plant is growing as part of the scenery or where the plant plays a minor role in

4

Introduction

image or narrative. It leaves out the many references to these plants in love potions, to them being used as poisons, and the myriad of references in late Byzantium writings. Scholarship on Intoxication Some scholars have written dedicated research on the topic of religious and recreational usage of psychotropic plants in the ancient Greek and Roman World. Carl Ruck, Albert Hoffmann, and Robert Wasson wrote The Road to Eleusis (1978), which sets the stage for exploring the use of entheogens in Greek and Roman culture. Ruck has additional publications, which focus on recreational and religious intoxication. D. C. A. Hillman wrote The Chemical Muse (2008), where he covers drug usage in the ancient Greek and Roman world, including recreational, religious, and medical. Michael Rinella wrote Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens (2011), in which he delves into psychotropic plant usage in the ancient Greek world, the problematization of drugs, and the scandals surrounding Socrates and Alcibiades. Alan Sumler wrote Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World (2018), in which recreational intoxication and other settings are explored. A recent article by R. Griffith (2019) on Catullus 13, which begins cenabis bene, speculates on drug culture in the city of Rome during the republic. The author considers the opening lines to be a reference to cannabis and intoxication, as well as to the elite circles desiring such luxuries. In the field of ancient Greek and Roman religion and magic, some scholars have covered psychotropic plant usage. John Scarborough’s “The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots” (1991) covered these plants as used in ancient magic and explained the ancient rationale behind how they worked. He has also covered these plants in ancient medicine. Christopher Faraone, in Ancient Greek Love Magic (2001), wrote about these plants as they are used in love magic and how they appear in other settings, like law courts. Georg Luck’s Arcana Mundi (2006) covers these plants as they are found in religion and the personal practice of magic. Alan Sumler, in “Ingesting Magic” (2017), considers these plants in magic and recreation. On psychoactive plants found in ancient wine, Patrick McGovern, author of Uncorking the Past (2009), has written the most. His molecular analysis of ancient wine shows that the drink had multiple ingredients, many of them psychotropic. He describes the usage of intoxicating drinks all around Europe, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Black Sea. McGovern covers recreational usage of drugs in the Greek and Roman world. In the field of ethnobotany, there is scholarship on psychotropic plants being used in different settings in the Greek and Roman world. The assumption is that these psychoactive plants grow all over the earth and that all cultures use

Introduction

5

them for mind alteration in some way. A recent multiauthored volume from Routledge, A Companion to Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World (2022), covers psychotropic drug usage in the Mediterranean world going back to the Bronze Age. Philip Wexler edited a two-volume multiauthored, text (2014, 2015), The History of Toxicology and Environmental Health, which covers many instances of recreational intoxication in the Greek and Ronan world. Some articles in scholarly journals are helpful for becoming familiar with psychotropic plant usage in the ancient world. Merlin, “Archaeological Evidence for the Tradition of Psychoactive Plant Use in the Old World” (2003), covers psychotropic plant usage throughout all ancient cultures. Carod-Artal, “Psychoactive Plants in Ancient Greece” (2013), considers substances available in the ancient Greek world. A few articles focus on Classical Greece, for instance Arata, “Nepenthe and Cannabis in Ancient Greece” (2004), and Eleanor, “Flower Power in Medicine and Magic: Theophrastus’ Response to the Rootcutters” (2006). The topic of kykeon at the Eleusinian Mysteries has produced some interesting scholarship, for instance Perrine, “Mixing the Kykeon” (2000), and Rosen “Hipponax fr. 48 Dg. And the Eleusinian Kykeon” (1987). A recent article by Hilary Becker (2021) considers the marketplace and adulteration of drugs in Rome. CHAPTER SUMMARY Chapter 1 covers the origins of drugs from the gods, including intoxication as a gift from the gods and psychoactive plants in mythological narrative. Ancient understandings of psychotropic plants begin with these myths and the gods. Plant-induced mania or madness is one variety of intoxication featured in mythological narratives. Many of the plants covered in this book show up in these narratives under mythical names. The ancient intellectual tradition would connect these scenes from myths to their own psychotropic plants. Chapter 2 begins with ancient philosophy and the role it played in the development of botany and the codification of plants. Theophrastus, Pliny, and other writers looked back to ancient philosophers as being experts on drugs. The chapter considers the scandal around Alcibiades and the profaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens, as well as the accusations of drug usage around the school of Socrates. The ingredients of kykeon are considered. The chapter delves into lawsuits over poisoning and laws against the selling of psychotropic drugs. In the background, Pliny narrates the evolution of botany and criticism of magical practice. The remaining chapters focus on certain plants and their appearances in Ancient Greek and Roman writings. Chapter 3 explores the psychotropic plant hellebore and its different usages. The plant was known to have mind-altering

6

Introduction

effects and to cure mental illness, especially madness. Hellebore was used as a running joke in the ancient world for calling people insane. There are instances where people used the plant for its psychotropic effects. Chapter 4 considers the mandrake plant and other plants from the nightshade family. These plants were famous for their ability to induce intense visions, stupor, and deep sleep. Although deadly, they were used in different settings, including recreational, for their intoxicating properties. Mandrake was used in ancient medicine to treat mental illness by putting the patient to sleep for long periods. The plant was often prescribed in love magic and was the most controversial in the ancient world because people overdosed and died on it. Mandrake and love magic were often made illegal or were at least held liable in ancient law. Chapter 5 covers several psychotropic plants that are less often mentioned in the literature and may be found more abundantly in the medical writings. It considers henbane (another plant from the nightshade family), hemlock, opium, cannabis, frankincense, and myrrh. These plants were widely available and commonly used. They were put in wine and used for recreational intoxication. Chapter 6 surveys ancient attitudes toward drinking wine and drunkenness. It considers the symposium, as well as other settings of intoxication. Scenes of drug abuse, extreme partying, and lifestyle drug usage are covered. Ancient rulers and kings often conducted business while being intoxicated. There is focus on unmixed wine and its side effects, including mania or madness, stupor, blackout, and insanity. There are stories of famous people who only drank unmixed wine and were always drunk. Chapter 7 considers other settings of intoxication. It briefly covers the party scene and hookup culture of Rome as seen through the Roman poets. In the Greek and Roman world there was a leisure culture that may be found in metropolises, port towns, and vacation resorts. Public establishments like taverns, inns, brothels, and wine bars housed this culture, but many of the details are lost. The chapter includes research from scholars who attempt to reconstruct the culture around these spaces. The chapter ends with a short note on modern-day applications of psychotropics for treating mental health symptoms. ANCIENT WRITERS Comic and Tragic Stage Performance The Greeks and Roman cultures performed comedies and tragedies onstage The research mentions ancient Greek tragedies by Aeschylus (sixth to fifth

Introduction

7

century BCE), Sophocles (fifth century BCE), and Euripides (fifth century BCE), which contain themes of intoxication. Ancient Greek comedies from Aristophanes (fifth to fourth century BCE) and Menander (fourth to third century BCE) allow insight into drinking and drug usage in Classical Greek culture. Some ancient Greek tragedies and comedies are fragmentary; their complete text and plotlines have been lost. Scenes of intoxication in these works are important because they help us gauge the attitude of the audience and the greater society.10 Theophrastus Theophrastus (fourth to third century BCE) took over the Lyceum after Aristotle died. He was a philosopher who wrote about science and nature.11 He completed several volumes on plants. My research covers excerpts from his Inquiry of Plants, especially book 9. His writings include almost all the plants mentioned in this book. He also covers psychotropic usage of plants, root cutting, drug tolerance, and medical applications. Theophrastus codified and gave the rationale behind the properties of plants.12 Nicander Nicander (second century BCE) was an ancient Greek poet of the Hellenistic world and wrote poems about agriculture, drugs, and medicine.13 His works do not remain intact. His Theriaca covers the medical treatments for poisonous snakebites, as well as other venomous creatures. My research examines passages from his work Alexipharmaca, which covers overdose of psychotropic plants and effective treatments. Nicander’s poetry gives us insight into ancient attitudes on intoxication and the commonality of psychotropic plant usage. Pliny Pliny the Elder (first century CE) wrote a work titled Natural Histories, which consisted of thirty-seven books. He was a Roman magistrate and leading intellectual of his day. His vast work covers agriculture, the properties and use of plants and trees, the psychotropic properties of plants and their uses, medical applications of plants, and the history of the codification of plants and medicine. Pliny used the works of ancient philosophers, Theophrastus, Nicander, and many other experts coming before him. He explains where plants were grown, how they were harvested and extracted, and how they were used. He also covered the production and usage of wine.

8

Introduction

In his narratives, there are scenes of intoxication and his opinions on using psychotropic plants. Dioscorides Dioscorides (first century CE) was a doctor in the Roman Empire who wrote The Material of Medicine. His work contains entries for nearly six hundred plants, trees, animals, and minerals.14 The entries include information on identifying, harvesting, extracting, and applying these ingredients. He explains the common medical usage of plants and covers the different types of wine. He includes information in his entries about the psychotropic effects of plants and shows them being used in recreational settings. His work contains entries for all the plants mentioned in this book. Galen and Other Doctors Galen (second and third centuries CE) was the personal doctor to Roman emperors and wrote a multitude of texts on medicine. He provides insight into the plants, medical usages, and psychotropic side effects. In his works, one will find medical treatments for psychotropic plant overdose. Some passages from Galen will be considered, where he writes about the physiology of intoxication and why people feel intoxicated. There are excerpts from other ancient medical writers. The ancient doctor Celsus (first century CE) wrote a piece titled On Medicine. He covers the treatment of mental symptoms like madness with psychotropic plants. He discusses the different approaches to curing mental symptoms. There will also be passages from the ancient doctor Aretaeus (second century CE), where he considers the treatment of mental symptoms using psychotropic plants. Plutarch Plutarch (first to second century CE) was a Greek intellectual living in the Greece during the Roman empire. Within his work Moralia, there is a subsection called “Table Talk.” It consists of an ongoing mock symposium attended by learned participants. The work covers drinking, wine, the symposium, and the usage of psychotropic plants. In the rest of the Moralia, which contains fourteen books total, there are other references to these plants. Athenaeus Athenaeus (second to third century CE) was a Greek intellectual living in the Roman empire who wrote a long piece titled The Learned Banqueters. The

Introduction

9

book consists of an ongoing mock symposium with intellectual participants. The speakers quote ancient comedy, tragedy, philosophy, and history. The drinking party begins with a discussion of wine and intoxication in Homeric times and moves its way into types of wine and other items used at the drinking party. There are narrations of extreme intoxication, overindulgence, and drug lifestyles within the passages quoted by the speakers. NOTES 1. See Sumler 2018, 59–74, Hillman 2008, 56–87, Rinella 2011, 3–24, and McGovern 2009 for a discussion of recreational drugs in the ancient world. 2. See Ruck 1978, 1992, 2015, Rinella 2011, 78–134, Luck 2006, 479–92, Bremmer 2002, and Scarborough 1991 for discussions about drugs in ancient Greek and Roman religion. 3. See Luck 2006, 482 for this discussion. 4. See Sumler 2017 for a discussion. 5. See McGovern 2009 and 2003 for discussions of psychotropic plants in ancient wine; also see Rinella 2011, 4. 6. See Nutton 1985, 141–45, Jones-Lewis 2016, 409–12, Totelin 2009, Hansen 2012, McGovern 2009, and Wilson et al. 2012, 287–96 on ancient Greek and Roman drug trade. Drugs imported into the Roman Empire were taxed. 7. See Irwin 2006, 432–34, Irwin 2016, 268, Scarborough 2006, 12–15, Scarborough 1991, 149–50, Hillman 2008, 165–67, 174, Jones-Lewis 2016, 411–12, and Rinella 2011, 154–58 for root cutters and drug dealers. 8. See Hillman 2008, 39–42 and 172, Irwin 2006, 428–31, Scarborough 1991, 154, Rinella 2011, 158–61, Sumler 2018, 25–42, and Totelin 2009 for discussions about humoral medicine. 9. For a few discussions of these plants see Hillman 2008, Totelin 2009, Scarborough 1991, Samorini 2022, Rinella 2011, Luck 2006, Carod-Artal 2012, and Touwaide 2014. 10. See Scarborough 1991, 143–45, Rinella 2011, 78–134, Ruck 2014, and Hillman 2008 concerning drugs on the Athenian stage. 11. For more on Theophrastus, see Hillman 2008, 40–45, 165–66, 198–99, Irwin 2006, 428–36, Irwin 2016, 265–69, and Scarborough 1991, 146–52; see Scarborough 2006 and Irwin 2016, 269–70 for Aristotle’s school and rationalization. 12. See Irwin 2006, 428–30, Scarborough 1991, 147–51, and Scarborough 2006 for Theophrastus’s rationale behind drugs and medicine. 13. See Touwaide 2014 for a discussion of Nicander; also, Rinella 2011 and Hillman 2008. 14. For Dioscorides, see Scarborough 1991, 153–54, Jones-Lewis 2016, 405–8, Irwin 2016, 273–74, Rinella 2011, Hillman 2008, 41, and Beck 2005.

Chapter 1

Mythological Drugs

There are many references to drugs and scenes of intoxication in ancient Greek and Roman myths. These drugs are usually unnamed. Ancient intellectuals speculated and claimed to know what drugs were used in mythological stories. Through these myths, we learn about the religious, magical, medical, and recreational usage of drugs as well as about their origins. Certain characters in myth were known for inventing drugs or for being knowledgeable about them. Heroes and heroines sometimes heal people using drugs, while other characters use them to deceive and harm others. HOMER’S ILIAD AND ODYSSEY The earliest mentions of drugs may be found in the ancient Greek poet Homer (eighth century BCE) and the two epic poems attributed to him, the Iliad and Odyssey. The ancient Greeks and Romans were very familiar with these works. In Homer’s epics, drugs are used for religion, medication, recreation, and trickery. The poems introduce us to early mindsets on drugs, medicine, and intoxication. The so-called “Homeric Question” presents the dilemma of dating the poems and the cultures described within the poems. The mythological stories of the Trojan War and of its aftermath go back to the Bronze Age of Greece (thirteenth century BCE). Societal structures appearing in the Iliad and Odyssey seem to reflect traditions from the Dark Age (eleventh to ninth century BCE) and Chiefdom societies. The original audience of the poem lived in the Dark Age and Archaic Age. The ancient Greeks were unaware of their own Bronze Age, which contained government structures very dissimilar to their own, i.e., palace economy. The Greek Bronze Age has its own history of drug usage and intoxication.1 Bronze Age Greeks were familiar with wine, intoxicating drugs, religious usage of drugs, and medical applications. Greek writers, like Homer 11

12

Chapter 1

and Theophrastus, understood that the Greeks received their knowledge about drugs and sometimes the drugs themselves from older civilizations like the Egyptians. DRUGS IN HOMER’S ILIAD Homer’s Iliad covers the events occurring during the tenth year of the Trojan War, fought between a coalition of ancient Greek “nations” and the kingdom of Troy, located in modern-day Turkey. The narrative from Homer and other ancient Greek writers maintains that the war was started over the abduction of Helen, wife of the Greek king Menelaus, by the Trojan prince, Paris Alexander. The Iliad contains a few references to drugs. Beyond these references, drinking wine, burning incense, and making religious sacrifices are mentioned often without any specific indication of what was in the wine or what incense was being burned. The sacrifice scenes found throughout both poems show the attendees eating food and drinking wine. Wine was a feature at ancient Greek religious festivals. Even in Roman times, public religious festivals offered free food and drink to attendees. The following examples from Homer contain a different context other than religious usage of intoxicants. In the Iliad book 4, the hero and husband of Helen, Menelaus, is shot by an arrow. Agamemnon sends a herald to Machaon the physician for help. Agamemnon tells Menelaus (4.190–91): “But the healer will examine the wound and lay on it herbs (pharmaka) that will make you cease from dark pains.”2 When Machaon arrives (4.217–19), he heals the wound using a mythological drug, which eases the pain. But when he saw the wound where the bitter arrow had entered, he sucked out the blood, and with sure knowledge spread on it soothing herbs (pharmaka), which once Cheiron had given to his father with kindly intent.3

The scene describes Machaon as the son of Asclepius, a god of medicine. Machaon applies a drug (pharmaka), which he received from the mythological centaur, half human-half horse, Chiron. Machaon is a doctor and comes from a family of medical men. These doctors in the poem are experts on medicinal plants and applications.

Mythological Drugs

13

Asclepius The god of medicine, Asclepius, represents some of the earliest conceptions and practices of medicine. Temples of Asclepius, located throughout Greece, served to cure disease and illness for those who visited the temple.4 According to Pliny (29.2), Hippocrates was the first to bring temple medicine into private practice. He was thought to have invented clinical medicine. Pliny’s story is mythological, but it acknowledges a time when medicine was rationalized. In Pliny’s mind, Hippocrates would be the first to codify magic into medicine, disregarding the supernatural elements.5 Pliny also cites the ancient Greek philosophers as important players in the codification of magical plants into medicine. Pliny’s narratives often delve into the fantastical, and he represents the learned outlook of his times. There is an early reference to the medical practices of Asclepius in odes of Pindar (sixth to fifth century BCE), where medical treatments of the god consist of incantations, surgery, and potions (Pythian 3.51–53). On the comic stage of the Greater Dionysia, Aristophanes gives us a firsthand view of a healing temple in his comedy Wealth. In the comedy, Plutus, the god of wealth, visits a temple of Asclepius to have his blindness cured. Similar temple healing practices are found in Babylon and Egypt. The patient has a dream, and the treatment occurs based on the temple worker’s interpretation of the dream. Sometimes medicines are applied and other times magical amulets are preferred. The practice was a mixture of magic and medicine. This form of public medicine lasted into Roman times. Chiron The centaur Chiron, mentioned in the passage from the Iliad, was known to have been a discoverer of drugs and medicine. Pliny (25.13–14.32) ascribed two different panaceas or all-heals to Chiron. In a different section, Pliny (25.30.66) discussed another drug called the centaury and related it to the centaur Chiron. Centaury is said to have been the treatment given to Chiron when an arrow fell on his foot as he was handling the arms of Hercules, who was his guest; for which reason some call it chironion.6

In Pliny, curative drugs and plants are thought to be discovered by deities, heroes, and kings, who receive honor for their discoveries. Machaon may have used such a drug to heal Menelaus’s wound. The scene from the Iliad contains this understanding that curative drugs come from the gods and that healers are knowledgeable about them.

14

Chapter 1

Kykeon in the Iliad In the following passage from the Iliad, the famous mythological drug known as kykeon makes an appearance. Modern-day scholars have speculated on the contents of this drug. Its misuse by the Athenian general Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War may have led to the trial and death of his teacher, the philosopher Socrates.7 In Iliad book 11, Nestor and company drink kykeon. And lovely-haired Hekamede made them a potion (kykeon), she whom the old man won from Tenedos, when Achilleus stormed it. (11.624–25)8 In this the woman like the immortals mixed them a potion with Pramneian wine, and grated goat’s-milk cheese into it with a bronze grater, and scattered with her hand white barley into it. When she had got the potion ready, she told them to drink it, and both when they had drunk it were rid of their thirst’s parching and began to take pleasure in conversation, talking with each other, and Patroklos came and stood, a godlike man, in the doorway. (11.637–43)9

Ancient writers were familiar with this passage and the ingredients of kykeon.10 The drink in this scene makes the users intoxicated and share war stories. Plato mentions this scene in the Ion (538c), where Socrates delegates knowledge about kykeon to the practitioner of medicine. Achilles sees Nestor return to his ship with a wounded soldier, seemingly Machaon, son of Asclepius. He sends Patroclus to Nestor’s ship to see who was wounded. When Patroclus arrives, he confirms that it is Machaon who was wounded. Nestor and Machaon are sitting together drinking kykeon and seem intoxicated. They take pleasure in conversing. Nestor asks Patroclus to sit with them, but he refuses, saying he must bring word back to Achilles. Nestor rebukes Patroclus and asks why Achilles would care which Greek soldiers were wounded. He proceeds to tell stories about the days when he was young and strong like Achilles and how he won great plunder from his exploits and raids. Nestor shows contempt toward Patroclus and Achilles because Achilles refuses to enter the war. Nestor’s speech about the olden days continues for some time. The kykeon may have made him talkative and boastful, a sign of intoxication. Pramneian wine, like any ancient wine, would contain additives for flavor and strength. The barley on top consists of barley groats (alphita) and, if fermented long enough, can become psychotropic.11 The scene from the Iliad is both medical and recreational. It is important to note that Nestor and Machaon drink the kykeon, not just the wounded Machaon. The scene concerns leisure and downtime from battle. Machaon’s wound is never described or discussed in the passage.

Mythological Drugs

15

Opium Poppy in the Iliad The most famous and effective plant of the ancient world, opium poppy, is found in two similes from Homer’s Iliad.12 Homeric similes aim to increase dramatic effect by offering an image from nature as a comparison to the image in the moment, here during battle (8.306–8). He bent drooping his head to one side, as a garden poppy bends beneath the weight of its yield and the rains of springtime; so his head bent slack to one side beneath the helm’s weight.13

The image describes the death of Gorgythion, one of the sons of King Priam. The Greek soldier, Teucer, meant the arrow for the Trojan Hector, but it misses and hits another Trojan. The dead soldier’s heavy helmet weighs down the head and bends the neck, like a poppy bending over due to the weight of its juice. In the next example (14.499–500), the Greek soldier Peneleos stabs a spear into the face of the Trojan Ilioneus. “He, lifting it high like the head of a poppy, displayed it to the Trojans and spoke vaunting over it:”14 Peneleos, after hitting Ilioneus in the eye with a spear, cuts off the wounded soldier’s head, which causes the eye to pop out and stick on the tip of Peneleos’s spear. Peneleos then holds the spear high in the air with the eye displayed to intimidate the enemy soldiers. The image of the opium poppy would be familiar to the audience of the poem. The plant was grown on farms and used for medicine, food, religion, and recreation. The psychotropic juice from the plant causes hallucinations and sleep and numbs pain; it is also very addictive. The two images from Homer show the bulbous oval head of the poppy plant connected to its slender stem. As the head becomes ripe, it fills with intoxicating milky juice and begins to bend from side to side because of the top weight. The opium poppy was used and traded in Greece and Rome as far back as the Bronze Age. DRUGS IN HOMER’S ODYSSEY Homer’s Odyssey, an epic poem about the return of the Greek heroes from the Trojan War, contains several references to drugs and intoxication. In this passage, Helen, now living in Sparta with Menelaus, spikes the wine with nepenthes, a mythological drug much discussed by ancient thinkers. In book 4, Menelaus and Helen entertain Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. He has gone by the command of Athena in search of news about his father. Telemachus first visits Nestor in Pylos, where he is the guest of a large

16

Chapter 1

dinner party and sacrifice. From Pylos, he travels to Sparta, where he is well received with more parties and sacrifices. A good host was expected to provide such banquets to welcome visitors. In the scene (Odyssey 4.219–30), Helen puts a mythical drug in the wine so that stories about the Trojan War and Odysseus could be shared without inducing grief or sorrow in the listeners. And then Helen born of Zeus had another plan, Straightaway she put into the wine, which they drank, a pharmakon, Which soothes pain and anger, which causes forgetfulness of all evils. Who(ever) should drink it, when it has been mixed in the krater, All day indeed not a tear would he let down his cheek, Not even if his mother and father were to die, Not even if right before him a brother or dear son Were killed by bronze, and he saw it with the eyes. The daughter of Zeus had such helpful pharmaka, Good ones, which Polydamna furnished her, the wife of Thon, From Egypt, where the wheat-giving earth bears most Pharmaka, many when mixed are good, others are harmful, And each man (there) is a physician knowing more than all Men, for truly they are of the race of Paieon.

The setting is recreational. The wine allows for talkativeness and the drug serves the purpose of relieving grief. The mythological drug was called nepenthes, meaning no-suffering. The passage presents a very powerful drug by which one may watch violent slaughter of loved ones without shedding a tear. The passage points to the idea that Egypt had exotic drugs and its people knew about harvesting and using such drugs. Other parts of the ancient world would be known for their production of plants used in medicine and recreation. The list of famous places includes India, Persia, Crete, Turkey, and parts of Italy. The scene presents a common ancient mindset on drugs. Women were thought to play the role of drug experts in magic and the procurement of such drugs.15 In addition to Helen, the scene mentions a woman named Polydamna. In Homer, we will also encounter Circe. In other Greek myths, Medea is famous for her ability to procure deadly drugs and use them. In Vergil’s Aeneid, Dido plays the drug-gathering sorceress. These women are typically depicted as being experts in magic and drugs. In the Greek and Roman cultures, there was a prejudice that women may drug and kill their husbands. The motive was either nefarious or a failed attempt at using a love potion. Surviving lawsuits and orations from the ancient Greek

Mythological Drugs

17

and Roman world contain the theme of the female poisoner. Some examples will be considered in the next chapter. Nepenthes Different writers, like Theophrastus, Pliny, Galen, and Plutarch, write about this scene in the Odyssey and Helen’s nepenthes. Theophrastus (History of Plants 9.15) seems to echo Homer’s passages about Helen in a section where he covers the places where medicinal plants are grown or produced. The places outside Hellas which specially produce medicinal herbs seem to be the parts of Tyrrhenia and Latium (where they say that Circe dwelt), and still more parts of Egypt, as Homer says: or thence he says that Helen brought “things of virtue which Polydamna, the Egyptian wife of Thon, gave her; there the grain-bearing earth produces most drugs, many that are good, and many baneful.” Among these he says was nepenthes, the famous drug which cures sorrow and passion, so that it causes forgetfulness and indifference to ills. So these lands seem to have been pointed out, as it were, by the poets.16

Theophrastus quotes the passage from the Odyssey. To him, poets are early sources of expert knowledge on plants and their effects. He recognized the ability of this drug to cure sorrow. Pliny (21.91.159) writes about a drug named after Helen, which has the same effects as the nepenthes found in the Homeric passage.17 Helenium, which had its origin, as I have said, in the tears of Helen, is believed to preserve physical charm, and to keep unimpaired the fresh complexion of our women, whether of the face or of the rest of the body. Moreover, it is supposed that by its use they gain a kind of attractiveness and sex-appeal. To this plant when taken in wine is attributed the power of stimulating gaiety, the power possessed by the famous nepenthes extolled by Homer of banishing all sorrow. It also has a very sweet juice. The root of it, taken in water fasting, is good for asthma; inside it is white and sweet. It is also taken in wine for snake bites. Pounded it is said further to kill mice.18

The drug attributed to Helen has different uses, according to Pliny; it was used as a cosmetic, as a love potion or philtria, and for increasing intoxication at drinking parties. It may also be used to treat asthma and snakebites and kill pests. Deadly nightshade is likely the plant indicated, but Pliny mentions helenium at 21.33.59 and says that it is like wild thyme. The drug of Helen is used in the same ways as deadly nightshade, i.e., as a mind-altering intoxicant.

18

Chapter 1

Galen (Soul’s Traits 777–78k) covers the scene from the Odyssey in a passage about the nature of the soul. Galen considers that wine was used to relieve stress and implies that it was a very common home remedy. Drinking wine clearly relieves all distress and dysthymia (despondency)—we have proof of this every day. And Zeno, so they say, said that just as bitter lupines become sweet when soaked in water, so too was he himself settled by wine. However, they also say the “the wine-like root” does this even more, and this was the drug of the Egyptian stranger, of whom the poet says:19

Galen discusses the soul and why drugs, which have cold properties, cause alteration of the mind, intoxication, and sometimes death. In this passage, he covers other substances, which may produce the same intoxicating effects as wine. To Galen and the humoral system, poisons and intoxicating substances have cold properties, and he wonders why these substances affect the mind, even to the point of causing the soul to leave the body. Plutarch (Moralia / Table Talk 614bc) mentions the scene from the Odyssey with Helen in a discussion about customs at drinking parties. He writes that it was common for the host of the symposium to spike the wine and better the mood. Now those who mix alkanet (ox-tongue) in their wine and sprinkle their floors with infusions of vervain and maidenhair because, as they believe, these things to some extent contribute to the cheerfulness and gaiety of their guests, do so in imitation of Homer’s Helen, who secretly added a drug to the undiluted wine; but they do not see that that legend too, having fetched a long course from Egypt, has its end in the telling of appropriate and suitable stories. For as they drink, Helen tells her guests a tale about Odysseus, . . .20

The host of the drinking party made sure that a good mood was set for the guests. It is customary to put drugs in the wine to increase its potency and effects. Plutarch speculated that the story itself told about Odysseus caused the guests to feel less pain and suffering, rather than the drug. The ox-tongue was famous for its properties of increasing cheerfulness and intoxication for the party. Pliny (25.40.81) envisions the drug being taken in wine at a drinking party. Akin to the plantain is buglossos, which is like the tongue of an ox. The most conspicuous quality of this is that thrown into wine it increases the exhilarating effect, and so it is also called euphrosynum, the plant that cheers.21

Dioscorides (Mat. med. 4.127), in his writings on pharmacology, also mentions the drug used in wine.

Mythological Drugs

19

The bugloss: it resembles the mullein. Its foliage lies on the ground, and it is jagged, darker, and smaller, resembling a cow’s tongue. Dropped into their wine, it is thought to make people mirthful.22

Although we cannot identify Helen’s nepenthes, the ancient authors who mentioned this scene, also mention the common practice of spiking wine with drugs. The understanding is that the drug is used for recreation and relaxation, while complementing the wine. The eleventh-century Byzantium scholar Michael Psellus (Miscellanea et allegorica 32.1) mentions the famous nepenthes and its possible makeup.23 In a section on incredible things heard, he identifies the drug as containing asphodel, mallow root, sesame, opium, and squill. He says that the drug causes one to forget all evil things. In the early Middle Ages, Christian scholars still speculated on the contents of the mythological drug. It seems that the ancient world had no consensus on the drug used by Helen in Homer. It was up to the host of the party to choose which drugs to put in the wine and what mood to set overall. The mythological scene set precedence for the ancient drinking party. Kykeon and Moly in the Odyssey In book 10.233–40, during his wanderings at sea, Odysseus sends members of his crew to visit Circe and see if she is friendly and will help them out. Circe, a sorceress and expert on drugs, turns the men into swine by using a combination of magic and drugs. She brought them in and made them all sit on chairs and seats, and made for them a potion (kykeon) of cheese and barley meal and yellow honey with Pramnian wine; but in the food she mixed evil drugs (pharmaka), that they might utterly forget their native land. Now when she had given them the potion, and they had drunk it off, then she immediately struck them with her wand, and penned them in the pigsties. And they had the heads, and voice, and bristles, and shape of swine, but their minds remained unchanged, just as they were before.24

Circe serves Odysseus’s crew a kykeon with the same ingredients as the scene in the Iliad, although she has added a powerful drug to the potion. The effect of the drug on the crew reveals an important ongoing theme throughout the Odyssey: to forget one’s return home. It is the same threat offered by the Sirens and the Lotus Eater in book 9. The Lotus Eaters deserve further mention, because they survive on an intoxicating mythological drug instead of eating food. The lotus seems to be very addictive and euphoric. Here is the scene from the Odyssey (9.91–103):

20

Chapter 1

They departed at once and mingled with the Lotus-eaters; nor did the Lotus-eaters think of killing my comrades, but gave them lotus to eat. And whoever of them ate the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus no longer wished to bring back word or return home, but there they wished to remain among the Lotuseaters, feeding on the lotus, and to forget their homecoming. I myself brought back these men, weeping, to the ships under compulsion, and dragged them beneath the benches and bound them fast in the hollow ships; and I bade the rest of my trusty comrades to embark with speed on the swift ships, for fear that perchance anyone should eat the lotus and forget his homecoming.25

The image of the crew withdrawing from the magical drug indicates a severe addiction. Hardly any of the drugs mentioned in the ancient Greek and Roman world prove to be addictive except for opium poppy and possibly alcohol. Any of the drugs in the ancient world could be habit forming and deadly when abused or misused. The lotus is a mythological drug with mythological effects. The theme of forgetting one’s return home runs throughout the epic poem. Returning to the scene with Circe, Odysseus decides to go and save his crew, who never returned from their expedition. He hears from Eurylochus, who avoided the ordeal, what has happened to the crew. On his way to Circe’s lair (10.274–97), Odysseus encounters the god Hermes, who gives him a special drug to serve as an antidote to Circe’s drug. In the ancient world, Hermes was known as a god of magic and drugs. So saying, I went up from the ship and the sea. But when, as I went through the sacred glades, I was about to come to the great house of Circe, expert in poisons, then Hermes of the golden wand met me as I went toward the house, in the likeness of a young man with the first down upon his lip, in whom the charm of youth is fairest. He clasped my hand, and spoke, and addressed me: “Where now again, unfortunate man, do you go alone through the hills, knowing nothing of the country? Those comrades of yours in Circe’s house are penned like pigs in close-barred sties. And have you come here to release them? No, I tell you, you yourself will not return, but will remain there with the others. But come, I will free you from harm, and save you. Here, take this potent herb (pharmakon), and go to the house of Circe, and it shall ward off from your head the evil day. And I will tell you all the deadly wiles of Circe. She will mix you a potion (kykeon), and cast drugs into the food; but even so she will not be able to bewitch you, for the potent herb that I shall give you will not permit it.”26

Antidotes to drugs, overdose, and poisons were discussed by many ancient writers. Pliny, Nicander, Theophrastus, Galen, and others discuss these antidotes, which typically contain another toxic substance mixed with wine. In the next scene, Hermes will give Odysseus a mythological antidote.

Mythological Drugs

21

So saying, Argeïphontes gave me the herb (pharmakon), pulling it out of the ground, and showed me its nature. At the root it was black, but its flower was like milk. Moly the gods call it, and it is hard for mortal men to dig; but the gods can do anything. (10.302–6)27 There I stood and called, and the goddess heard my voice. She came out at once and opened the bright doors and called me in; and I went with her, my heart deeply troubled. She brought me in and made me sit on a silver-studded chair, a beautiful chair, richly wrought, and beneath was a footstool for the feet. And she prepared me a potion (kykeon) in a golden cup, that I might drink, and put in it a drug (pharmakon), with evil purpose in her heart. (10.310–17)28

Odysseus overcomes Circe using the mythological antidote. Ancient writers would include anti-sorcery as a property of moly. That Odysseus sleeps with Circe indicates that the kykeon worked, although the antidote kept him from being under her powers. Ancient writings would discuss the mythological drug moly and speculate on its properties. Theophrastus (History of Plants 9.16.7) wrote about the location where moly was grown. All-heal grows in great abundance and best in the rocky ground about Psophis, moly about Pheneos and on Mount Kyllene. They say that this plant is like the moly mentioned by Homer, that it has a round root like an onion and a leaf like squill, and that it is used against spells and magic arts, but that it is not, as Homer says, difficult to dig up.29

Pliny (25.8.26) wrote about the mythological moly, which was used to ward off witchcraft and evil trickery. The most renowned of plants is, according to Homer, the one that he thinks is called by the gods moly, assigning to Mercury its discovery and teaching of its power over the most potent sorceries. Report says it grows today in Arcadia round Pheneus and on Cyllene; it is said to be like the description in Homer, with a round, dark root, of the size of an onion and with the leaves of a squill, and not difficult to dig up.30

Mercury, the Roman equivalent to the Greek god Hermes, is given credit for discovering the drug. In the passage from the Odyssey, Hermes says that only gods can dig up the root, but Pliny and Theophrastus maintain that it is easy to dig up. Pliny (21.105.180) identified another drug, nicknamed moly, in his writings about the psychotropic drug nightshade. There is besides another kind, with the name of halicacabos, which is soporific, and kills quicker even than opium, by some called morion and by others moly, yet praised by Diocles and Evenor, by Timaristus indeed even in verse, with a

22

Chapter 1

strange forgetfulness of harmless remedies, actually because it is, they say, a quick remedy for strengthening loose teeth to rinse them in wine and halicacabos. They added a provision, that the rinsing must not go on too long, for delirium is caused thereby.31

Pliny described the drug, as with other strains of the nightshade family, as causing delirium or mind alteration. Drugs from the nightshade family were put into wine for medical and recreational purposes. The halicacabos, discussed in chapter 4, causes sleep and can cause death. It is more potent than opium poppy. Pliny chastised ancient writers who recommended halicacabos, because it can harm the patient. Pliny said that the drug was used by quack prophets and soothsayers who wanted to seem inspired by the gods and enter a state of mania.32 Mythological Intoxication in the Odyssey When Odysseus and his crew encounter the one-eyed Cyclops named Polyphemus, we find an instance of a mythological wine and equally mythological intoxication. In the scene (9.196–205), wine is used as a sedative and as an anesthetic. The mythological wine comes from a legendary priest of Apollo. With me I had a goat-skin of the dark, sweet wine, which Maro, son of Euanthes, had given me, the priest of Apollo, the god who used to watch over Ismarus. And he had given it me because we had protected him with his child and wife out of reverence; for he dwelt in a wooded grove of Phoebus Apollo. And he gave me splendid gifts: of well-wrought gold he gave me seven talents, and he gave me a mixing-bowl all of silver; and besides these, wine, wherewith he filled twelve jars in all, wine sweet and unmixed, a drink divine.33

Mythological wine produces mythological intoxication. The wine from Maro, the son of Euanthes or “Rich in Flowers,” causes the giant Cyclops to fall asleep and stay asleep while Odysseus and crew bore his eye out with a wooden spike. Maro appears in a section of Diodorus Siculus (1.15.1–20) where he is left behind in Greece by king Dionysus or Osiris, who has him teach wine making to the Greeks. Some drugs in the ancient world could provide a deep sleep for the sake of surgical cuttings. It is possible that the Odysseus’s wine contained thorn apple, which is found in the nightshade family and used by ancient doctors for anesthesia.

Mythological Drugs

23

PROMETHEUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF DRUGS In the poet Hesiod (eighth to seventh century BCE), we find a myth about the invention of drugs by the god Prometheus. In his Theogony (line 535), a poem about the birth of the gods, there is the myth about the Sacrifice at Mekone. Prometheus, a Titan god, tricks Zeus with the distribution of the meat and fat between the gods and mortal men. Zeus takes fire away from the mortal race because of the trick, but Prometheus steals it back in the stalk of the fennel plant. The fennel stalk was part of the ancient Greek worship of Prometheus at festivals and in imagery. The fennel stock was featured in the imagery around the worship of Dionysus in the depiction of maenads and in the worship of Demeter. According to Ruck, the fennel stock or narthex was a container for intoxicating drugs.34 In return for Prometheus’s crime, Zeus creates the female race and the institution of marriage, to punish the mortal race. The sacrifice and deception of Zeus took place at Mekone, which is both a mythological place and the ancient Greek word for opium poppy. The poet does not include the reason behind the sacrifice occurring at Mekone nor is there any mention of drug usage in the poem. Hesiod picks up the same theme in his Works and Days, an epic poem about farming. There we learn that humans must farm their food from the land because of the same punishment concerning Prometheus and the stealing of fire. Zeus adds additional punishment by producing Pandora and giving her to the mortal race. When Pandora is presented to the mortal race, she opens her box or jar and lets out all these different evils, while only keeping hope in the jar. Her jar (pyxis) was a typical container of medicaments in the ancient Greek world; it is a small round ceramic box with a lid. The new state of human suffering is alleviated by Prometheus and his discoveries, which ties him to the invention of drugs. The ancient Greeks saw Prometheus and his myth as being pro-human because he cures the suffering caused by the gods. He is worshipped as an inventor of drugs and for other human innovations. In a tragedy from Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is shown in just such a light as a savior to the mortal race, a doctor for the human condition. The tragedy was performed onstage at the Greater Dionysia, a festival in honor of the god of wine held in Athens. When you have heard the rest of what I have to say, you will be even more amazed by all the skills and devices that I have contrived. The greatest was this. If anyone fell sick, there was no means of aiding him, neither by food nor ointment nor potion: they withered and decayed for want of remedies, until

24

Chapter 1

I showed them how to mix gentle curative drugs, with which they can now defend themselves against all kinds of diseases. I also systematized many kinds of seer-craft. I was the first to interpret from dreams what actual events were destined to happen. (Prometheus Bound ines 476–86)35

In the tragedy, the god is being punished for helping the mortals and for withholding important information from Zeus about the potential overthrow of his divine throne. In the scene, he tells the daughters of Ocean about the benefits which he brought to the world. He credits himself for inventing curative drugs and the practice of magic, especially the ability to see the future.36 MEDEA THE ROOT CUTTER Apollonius Rhodes (third century BCE), the Hellenistic poet and head of the Library at Alexandria, describes a drug related to Prometheus in his epic poem the Argonautica. The poem covers the myths surrounding Jason and the quest for the Golden Fleece, a myth occurring earlier than the Trojan War. The drug comes from the blood of the tortured Prometheus, who was chained to the side of a mountain with an eagle eating out his liver daily as punishment from Zeus. She, meanwhile, took from the hollow chest a drug which they say is called Promethean. If, after appeasing the only-begotten Daira with nocturnal sacrifices, a man should anoint his body with this drug, he would truly be impervious to strokes of bronze and not yield to blazing fire, but for that day would be superior both in valor and might. It first sprouted when the flesh-eating eagle dripped the bloody ichor of tortured Prometheus to the ground on the cliffs of Caucasus. From it emerged a flower a cubit high above ground in color like a Corycian crocus, supported by two stalks, but in the earth its root was like freshly cut flesh. Its sap, like the black juice of a mountain oak, she had collected in a Caspian shell to prepare the drug, after bathing herself seven times in ever-flowing streams, and calling seven times on Brimo the youth-nourisher, Brimo the night-wanderer, the infernal goddess, queen of the nether dead—all in the gloom of night, clad in dark garments. And with a bellow the black earth beneath shook when the Titanian root was cut, and the son of Iapetus himself groaned, distressed at heart with pain. This drug she then took out and placed in the fragrant band that was fastened around her divinely beautiful breasts. (Apollonius Rhodes Argonautica 3.844–68)37

The mythological drug, which boasts incredible powers, comes from a plant grown from the blood of the suffering Prometheus. Medea gives the drug to Jason, after she has properly harvested it. He will use it to conquer the dragon

Mythological Drugs

25

or snake that guards the Golden Fleece. In the scene, Medea has carefully harvested the drug, after preparing herself and making incantations to a god. Medea was another mythological woman who knew about drugs and magic.38 Like Circe, she was typically portrayed as doing harm to others with drugs. In Euripides’s Medea, we hear how she once killed Pelias, Jason’s uncle, using magic and herbs. In the tragedy, she kills Creon and his daughter with a poisoned robe. Sophocles (fr. 534) wrote a tragedy, the Rootcutters, now lost, which showed Medea cutting and harvesting plants.39 And she (Medea) while averting her eyes behind her hands receives in the bronze vessels the milky white juice oozing from the cut. . . . And the covered vessels hide the ends of the roots which she while raving and shrieking naked cuts with bronze knives.

A root cutter (rizotomai) was a specialist in potent herbs, as well as the magical traditions surrounding the harvest of such herbs. Medea here seems to harvest opium poppy with its milky juice. Averting the eyes, speaking incantations, and being naked were part of the traditions of root cutting. Theophrastus, Pliny, and Dioscorides were skeptical of some of their magical and superstitious practices. HYMN TO DEMETER AND THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES The Hymn to Demeter gives us insight into the power associated with the goddess and her daughter, Persephone. The abduction of her daughter by Zeus’s brother Aidoneus makes up the subject matter of the hymn. Athens celebrated the Lesser and Greater Mysteries in honor of the two goddesses. The Greater Mysteries were known as the Eleusinian Mysteries. Mythological drugs play a role in the myth and worship of Demeter. Demeter was a goddess of agriculture, especially grain, and her worship included mysteries that celebrated the invention of agriculture. The Greeks thought of Demeter and Dionysus as the most important deities for the birth of civilization. Besides bountiful crops, the worship of Demeter promised a good afterlife for those initiated in her mysteries. In the hymn, Aidoneus, the god of the underworld, abducts Persephone for the sake of marriage. Persephone, at the time, was picking flowers with other maidens in a meadow. Aidoneus takes Persephone to the underworld, and Demeter goes in search of her. The hymn begins as follows:

26

Chapter 1

Of Demeter the lovely-haired, the august goddess first I sing, of her and her slender-ankled daughter, whom Aïdoneus seized by favor of heavy-booming, wide-sounding Zeus as she frolicked, away from Demeter of the golden sword and resplendent fruit, with the deep-bosomed daughters of Ocean, picking flowers across the soft meadow, roses and saffron and lovely violets, iris and hyacinth, and narcissus, that Earth put forth as a snare for the maiden with eyes like buds by the will of Zeus, as a favor to the Hospitable One. It shone wondrously, an aweinspiring thing to see both for the immortal gods and for mortal men. From its root a hundred heads grew out, and a perfumed odor; the whole broad sky above and the whole earth smiled, and the salty swell of the sea.40

The scene imagines a festival of young maidens close to the age of marriage, who pick flowers in a meadow in Nysa. Dionysus supposedly came from this Nysa, known for its magical plants. The flowers in this scene are potent drugs used in medicine and magic. Persephone picks a flower, which the gods set as a trap. From the flower, Aidoneus abducts Persephone and takes her to Hades. One interpretation of this scene is that she dies from poison thus going to the underworld. Aidoneus’s intention for the abduction was marriage, and abduction rituals were a part of ancient marriage traditions. Demeter suffers severe grief due to the loss of her daughter and goes in search of her. Demeter aims to cause trouble for the rest of the gods and mortals by not allowing the crops to grow until she receives Persephone back. The goddess ultimately arrives in the city of Eleusis, near Athens, and becomes a nurse in the house of King Celeus for the queen Metaneira. When Demeter is welcomed at the house of Metaneira, she is disguised as an old woman and hides her divinity. Metaneira receives her in the house and certain events unfold (lines 206–11). These events are thought to refer to the rituals performed at the Eleusinian Mysteries. It is likely that this myth was acted out during the festival, after participants were given a sacred drink. Metaneira filled a cup with honey-sweet wine and offered it to her. But she declined, saying that it was not proper for her to drink red wine; she told her to mix barley and water with the graceful pennyroyal and give it to her to drink. So she made the kykeon and gave it to the goddess, as she requested, and the lady Deo took it for custom’s sake.41

In this scene, Demeter is given kykeon to drink and is entertained by Iambe, a maid servant.42 The drink and the dancing of Iambe relieve Demeter’s grief, in a similar way as Helen’s nepenthe. It is thought that the initiates at the Greater Mysteries drank a similar potion in honor of the goddess. After caring for Metainera’s son, Demophoon, Demeter is ultimately discovered to be a goddess, and the city of Eleusis is forced by the goddess to

Mythological Drugs

27

build a temple and worship her. It is understood in the myth that she sets up the Mysteries of Eleusis and teaches the Eleusinians about agriculture. Demeter finally receives Persephone back, but she is now the wife of Aidoneus and may only share part of the year aboveground with her mother. Aidoneus gives Persephone the pomegranate seed to eat, another magical drug in the myth, which allows her to live aboveground for part of the year and in the underworld for part of the year. This image or cycle represents the crops themselves being sown and harvested throughout the seasons. As a mystery religion, people had to be initiated before participating in the festival, called the Greater Mysteries.43 Initiates in the mysteries were not allowed to share the events or details of the festival, which took place outside of Athens in the city of Eleusis. There were severe punishments for anyone who profaned the mysteries or shared details with noninitiates. The Athenians were very serious about keeping the details secret, and as a result we are unsure what occurred at the festival and what drugs were possibly consumed there. The Athenian general and student of Socrates Alcibiades was charged and found guilty of profaning the mysteries of Eleusis. It seems that he shared the sacred kykeon drink with foreigners and slaves. The controversy will be discussed further in the next chapter. DIONYSUS AND MANIA Dionysus, the god of wine, is part of the Mysteries of Eleusis, and the god had his own mysteries.44 The Greater Dionysia in Athens was one way to worship the god, but there were other mysteries in his honor, the details of which are mostly lost to us. At the Greater Dionysia, the audience consumed wine, which aided in the viewing of the performance of comedy and tragedy. Euripides’s Bacchae allows a glimpse into the way Dionysus was celebrated on the wilder side. What is important to note in the tragedy is how Dionysus’s realm of power affected the characters. He produces madness or mania in them, not necessarily intoxication from wine. Euripides’s Bacchae presents a foreign god of intoxication coming to Greece to introduce his mysteries. His divine power causes people to be intoxicated and to cure their suffering. The people undergoing mania in the tragedy appear to be hallucinating and having mind-altering experiences not really associated with alcohol, but rather psychotropic drugs.45 In the prologue to the tragedy, the character Dionysus describes his journeys from Asia to Greece. Dionysus explains that he will drive the women of Thebes out of their homes and induce madness (mania) in them.

28

Chapter 1

Leaving behind the gold-rich lands of the Lydians and Phrygians, I made my way to the sun-drenched plains of the Persians, the fortifications of Bactria, the harsh country of the Medes, prosperous Arabia, and all that part of Asia Minor that lies along the briny sea and possesses fine-towered cities full of Greeks and outlanders mingled together. (Euripides’s Bacchae Prologue lines 13–19)46

Dionysus relates his religious practices to those of Mother Rhea, the mother of Zeus. Later the chorus will add Mother Cybele as part of their inspirational practice. Just as Dionysus has his adherents, the maenads (madwomen) or Bacchantes, so Cybele has the Corybantes, who experience a frenzy similar to that of the Bacchantes. The ecstatic dancing and hypnotic music of the Corybantes deserve further commentary. In the Hellenistic poet Nicander, drug overdoses are compared to the frenzy of the Bacchantes and other religious adherents. His poem Alexipharmaca describes drugs overdoses and the treatments for them. The assumption in Nicander’s writings is that people overdose all the time on drugs, either by accident or for the sake of recreation. Here are three excerpts from his poem. If however a man thoughtlessly taste from loathsome cups a draught, deadly and hard to remedy, of coriander, the victims are struck with madness and utter wild and vulgar words like lunatics, and like crazy Bacchanals bawl shrill songs in frenzy of the mind unabashed. (Coriander Overdose Lines 157–61)47 And as when the Silens, the nurses of the horned Dionysus, crushed the wild grapes, and having for the first time fortified their spirits with the foaming drink, were confused in their sight and on reeling feet rushed madly about the hill of Nysa, even so is the sight of these men darkened beneath the weight of evil doom. (Aconite Overdose Lines 30–35)48 And he makes bleating noises, babbling endlessly in his frenzy; often too in his distress he cries aloud even as one whose head, the body’s master, has just been cut off with the sword; or as the acolyte with her tray of offerings, Rhea’s priestess, appearing in the public highways on the ninth day of the month, raises a great shout with her voice, while the people tremble as they hearken to the horrible yelling of the votary of Ida. Even so the man in his frenzy of mind bellows and howls incoherently, and as he glances sidelong like a bull, he whets his white teeth and foams at the jaws. (Arrow Poison Overdose Lines 214–23)49

Nicander imagines people overdosing on these drugs and acting like religious adherents in a trance. Coriander causes the users to undergo madness and act like Bacchantes. Aconite causes them to act as if they had drunk unmixed wine. Arrow poison causes one to act like a person whose head has been decapitated or like adherents to Rhea. The poet mentions the hill of Nysa,

Mythological Drugs

29

a mythological place where drugs were found and where Dionysus is a god (god of Nysa = Dio-nysus). The power of Dionysus in Euripides Bacchae equates to mania and hallucination. The Theban maenads in the mountains are seen performing miracles and acting beyond human capacity. The stranger (Dionysus in mortal form) will make Pentheus hallucinate. Pentheus is ultimately killed by his mother and her sisters, who think that Pentheus is a wild lion. The antagonist of the tragedy, Pentheus, king of Thebes, whose name means grief or suffering, assumes that the rites involved in the worship of Dionysus pertain to the realm of Aphrodite, including drinking wine and erotic rituals. Dionysus, in the tragedy, aims to punish Pentheus for not worshipping his divinity. In the tragedy, Pentheus calls the stranger an enchanter (goes), someone who practices magic and bewitches others. The mythological prophet Teiresias of Thebes tries to explain to Pentheus the proper worship of Dionysus and his realm of power. This new divinity you are laughing to scorn—I could not fully express how great he will be in Greece. Two things are chief among mortals, young man: the goddess Demeter—she is Earth but call her either name you like—nourishes mortals with dry food. But he who came next, the son of Semele, discovered as its counterpart the drink that flows from the grape cluster and introduced it to mortals. It is this that frees trouble-laden mortals from their pain—when they fill themselves with the juice of the vine—this that gives sleep to make one forget the day’s troubles: there is no other treatment for misery. Himself a god, he is poured out in libations to the gods, and so it is because of him that men win blessings from them. . . . The god is also a prophet: for the ecstatic and the manic have mantic powers in large measure. When the god enters someone in force, he causes him in madness to predict the future. He has also taken a share of Ares: often when an army is under arms and drawn up for battle, it is seized by a mad fear before it even begins battle: this too comes from Dionysus. . . . You are mad and most painfully so: some drug has caused it, and no drug can cure it. (Teiresias to Pentheus in defense of Dionysus Lines 272–327)50

Teiresias emphasizes the importance of Demeter and Dionysus, food and drink. The drink cures the mortal race of its suffering. Drinking wine helps one sleep and thus be ready for the next work day. Wine is given to the mortals from a god, so people worship the gods with wine. Dionysus, according

30

Chapter 1

to Teiresias, may enter the body and put it in a state of mania. The madness includes the ability to foretell the future. The passage ends with Teiresias saying that Pentheus is suffering madness on some other drug which has no cure. A messenger tells Pentheus how the maenads were acting in the mountains. They are described as performing miraculous deeds, making water, wine, and milk flow from the ground. Honey flows from their thyrsoi or fennel wands. They feed breast milk to wild animals; they attack cows and bulls, tearing them to pieces with their bare hands. They proceed to raid towns in the mountains and attack the villagers. The stranger convinces Pentheus to go and spy on the Bacchants in the mountains. Pentheus, as if under a spell, follows the commands of the god as he dresses up like a Bacchante. Dionysus parades Pentheus through the town and hides him in a tree above the Bacchantes. Pentheus is hallucinating and describes the stranger as a human changing into a bull. Look, I seem to see two suns in the sky! The seven-gated city of Thebes—I see two of them! And you seem to be going before me as a bull, and horns seem to have sprouted upon your head! Were you an animal before now? Certainly now you have been changed into a bull. (Lines 918–22)51

The stranger reveals Pentheus to the Bacchantes, and they tear down the tree where he hides. The Bacchantes, including his mother and her sisters, tear Pentheus to pieces and play with his head as if it were a ball. Agave returns to Thebes, carrying the head of Pentheus, her son. Cadmus calms her down enough to see what she had done. She finally sobers up and recognizes the head of her son, which she had been playing with as if a lion’s head in her lap. The main themes in the tragedy are mania, madness, and hallucination. When Agave asks what happened, Cadmus explains (line 1295), “You were out of your wits, and the whole city was possessed by Bacchus.”52 MELAMPUS There were other myths about Dionysus and his rites being transplanted to Greece. In ancient accounts, Melampus brings the rites of Dionysus to Greece and cures his daughters of madness using the psychotropic drug hellebore. In some versions, he cured the daughters of Proteus, who were driven insane.53 In Herodotus (Histories 9.34), it is the women of the city of Argos who are cured of madness. Herodotus (Histories 2.49) also mentions him bringing Dionysian rites to Greece. In Pliny (25.21.47), Melampus is known for his art of divination and for curing the daughters of Proteus of madness. He is likely relying on a passage

Mythological Drugs

31

from Theophrastus (9.11), who calls one type of hellebore Melampodion. Pliny writes: Melampus is well known for his skill in the arts of divination. From him one kind of hellebore is called melampodion. Some hold that the discovery is due to a shepherd called Melampus, who noticed that his she-goats were purged after browsing upon the plant, and by administering the milk of these goats cured the daughters of Proetus of their madness. Wherefore it is well to give here together an account of every kind of hellebore.54

Hellebore as a curative for madness appears in the different mythological accounts of Melampus. He learns about the curative properties of the plant by watching animals being purged after eating it. Melampus then is given credit for discovering the plant hellebore, which will be covered in chapter 3. WINE FESTIVAL Every year, Athens celebrated the Anthesteria festival in honor of opening the wine vats, which had finished maturing. It consisted of three days of drinking wine and included the entire family. Ruck (2015) describes the festival as honoring the return of Dionysus from the underworld who brings back the dead relatives to visit their families. Children were given wine during the festival and it would begin a lifelong understanding of the intoxicant. Tiny terra-cotta cups survive from the festival which depict young children drinking wine. During the festival, the adults would become extremely intoxicated. Dionysus represents, according to Ruck (2015), the avatar of intoxication to the ancient Greek world. The ancients worshipped the god in many different settings, some tame, others wild. As to the wild side of his worship, we only have fragments of it. The evidence is too sparce to reconstruct a coherent picture of his mysteries. In 186 BCE, the Roman senate outlawed Bacchanalia because of sexual improprieties performed in its rituals. The mysteries of Dionysus had made their way from Greece to Rome. NOTES 1. Many chapters in Stein et al. 2022, The Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experience, cover psychotropic drugs in the Bronze Age. For another discussion, see Merlin 2003. 2. Trans. Murray 1924, 178–79. 3. Ibid., 180–81

32

Chapter 1

4. See Rinella 2012, 157, Scarborough 1991, 143, 151, Totelin 2009, 120–23, Irwin 2006, 431 for dream oracle medicine at the temples of Asclepius. 5. See Totelin 2009, 123 for Pliny and Hippocrates. See Pliny 29.1–5 for the rationalization of medicine. 6. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol 7, 184–85. 7. See Rinella 2011. 8. Trans. Lattimore 2011, 251. 9. Ibid., 251 10. See Athenaeus Learned Banqueters 1.10ad for a discussion of this passage from Homer. 11. Barley groats are made from fermenting barley malt. Pliny (18.14.72, 18.15.75, c.f. 18.29.109) mentions the process of making barley malt. There were ancient drinks and beers made with it. It was thought to have health benefits. Barley malt is today a major ingredient in beer manufacture, as well as soda drinks. 12. For opium poppy in the ancient world, see Scarborough 1995, Scarborough 1991, 140, Hillman 2008, 38–39, 57–58, 64–73, 148–50, and Rinella 2011, 7, 156–60. See Merlin 2003 for opium and other psychoactive ingredients in all ancient civilizations. 13. Trans. Lattimore 2011, 190. 14. Ibid., 307. 15. See Irwin 2006, 427 for mythical women as experts on drugs; see Hobenreich and Rizzelli 2015 for another discussion. 16. Trans. Hort 1916, vol. 2, 288–91. 17. Compare Athenaeus book 5, 190f. 18. Trans. Jones 1951, vol. 6, 272–75. 19. Trans. Johnston 2020, 348–249.[AQ2] 20. Trans. Clement and Hoffleit 1969, vol. 8, 16–17. 21. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 194–95. 22. Trans. Beck 2005, 298. 23. See Hillman 2008 for a discussion of this passage in Psellus. 24. Trans. Murray 1919, vol. 1, 374–75. 25. Ibid., 322–23. 26. Ibid., 378–79. 27. Ibid., 380–81. 28. Ibid., 29. Trans. Hort 1916, vol. 2, 294–95. 30. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 154–55. 31. Trans. Jones 1951, vol. 6, 288–89. 32. See Hillman 2008, 76–78 for nightshade in Pliny; 102–3 for this passage and drugs for divination; 115–20 for magic divination as a service to customers. 33. Trans. Murray 1919, vol. 1, 330–31. 34. See Ruck 2015. 35. Trans. Sommerstein 2009, 508–9. 36. See Hillman 2008, 93–101 for a discussion about Prometheus and opium poppy. 37. Trans. Race 2009, 282–85.

Mythological Drugs

33

38. See Hillman 2008, 85, 125–45, 189–200, and Scarborough 1991, 139–40 for Medea, Circe, and Helen. 39. See Irwin 2006 and Scarborough 1991 for discussions of this fragment. 40. Trans. West 2004, 32–33. 41. Ibid., 48–49. 42. For a discussion of Demeter and drugs see Rinella 2011, 84–87. 43. For discussions about the Eleusinian Mysteries see Clinton 2004 and 2007; also see Richardson 1974. 44. See Ruck 1992 and 2015 for discussions. Also See Hillman 2008, 84–86 and Rinella 2011, 78–83. 45. See Ruck 2015. 46. Trans. Kovacs 2003, 12–15. 47. Trans. Gow and Scholfied 1953. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Trans. Kovacs 2003, 34–39. 51. Ibid., 100–1. 52. Ibid., 142–43. 53. See Rinella 2011, 153. 54. Trans Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 170–71.

Chapter 2

Philosophical Drugs

PLINY AND THE HISTORY OF DRUGS Pliny narrates the history of drugs from its earliest days in mythological times up to his own era. His mindset is shared by other intellectuals of his time and relies on the views of ancient Greek thinkers, like Theophrastus and Democritus. Greek philosophy played a role in the codification of plants and medicine. According to the narrations of Pliny, psychotropic drugs were used in medical, religious, and recreational settings. He was surprised that people used harmful drugs without understanding the dangers. Pliny (24.1) praises Nature and the holy Mother for providing medicine through plants. He (25.1) gives credit to different figures, some mythological, others philosophical, who contributed to the study and application of healing plants. He (29.1–4) includes the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates for bringing forth the system of rationalized medicine. Ancient Roman intellectuals recognized early philosophers as experts in plants, medicine, magic, and religious practice. Pliny cites works by these philosophers as his sources. He writes how early Greek philosophers learned about potent drugs and plants from their travels abroad. He praises those experts who tried everything until they found effective plants and treatments. Pliny (25.1) shows deep wonderment for the discovery of drugs by previous generations. Through his commentary, it is clear that people in his world practiced magic and still used magical rationale to understand the power of plants. He criticizes the mindset that incantations and charms produced the desired outcome instead of the drugs themselves. He writes (25.5.10): Nothing else will be found that aroused greater wonder among the ancients than botany. Long ago was discovered a method of predicting eclipses of the sun and moon—not the day or night merely but the very hour. Yet there still exists 35

36

Chapter 2

among a great number of the common people an established conviction that these phenomena are due to the compelling power of charms and magic herbs, and that the science of them is the one outstanding province of women.1

There was a belief in the ancient Greek and Roman world that the domain of magic belonged to women and that they were experts in the art. Pliny mentions Medea and Circe as mythological examples of magic practitioners. Pliny sees these older traditions to have influenced the proceeding ones. After the mythological traditions, knowledge about medicinal plants was written down. But the first of all those known to tradition to publish anything about botany carefully was Orpheus; after him Musaeus and Hesiod, as we have said, expressed great admiration for the plant called polium; Orpheus and Hesiod recommended fumigations.2

Ancient poets take up the next tradition of understanding drugs by writing about the usage of drugs in their poems. Fumigations were commonly used in medicine as a form of treatment. They were also found in public religious practice and private magical practice. It consists of the burning and inhaling of incense or covering parts of the body with smoke from incense. The next group of experts on botany are philosophers, who begin a tradition of rational discussion of plants and their properties. Ancient philosophers, like Pythagoras and Democritus, were important in the development of knowledge about plants. After him the celebrated philosopher Pythagoras was the first to compose a book on the properties of plants, assigning their original discovery to Apollo, Aesculapius and the immortal gods generally; Democritus also composed a similar work. Both of them visited the Magi of Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia and Egypt, and so amazed were the ancients at these books that they positively asserted even unbelievable statements.3

Even though plant properties had been rationalized, the system of knowledge still contained many elements from the practice of magic. The Magi are experts in magic who were holy men in foreign lands. The original Magi, according to Pliny, were Zoroastrian priests. Medicine would not exist as its own topic until Hippocrates and it was still half magical practice in Pliny’s day. For instance, Romans could choose either medicine or magic for treatment. Pliny admonishes people in his day for still relying on the practice of magic and for the use of harmful drugs. It is Pliny’s near obsession with detailing

Philosophical Drugs

37

the dangers of certain plants that allows great insight into how common psychotropic drug usage was in his day. PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY AND DRUGS Ancient medical writers were aware of medicine’s indebtedness to ancient Greek philosophy. The Roman doctor Celsus in his work On Medicine (Prooemium 6–8) discusses the developments of medicine from mythological times. Just as Pliny, he gives credit to the ancient Greek philosophers and Hippocrates. Hence we find that many who professed philosophy became expert in medicine, the most celebrated being Pythagoras, Empedocles and Democritus. But it was, as some believe, a pupil of the last, Hippocrates of Cos, a man first and foremost worthy to be remembered, notable both for professional skill and for eloquence, who separated this branch of learning from the study of philosophy.4

It was common for ancient doctors to first study philosophy, since medicine required an abundance of theorizing and experimenting. Diogenes Laertes, a Roman intellectual and writer, living after Pliny, wrote about the lives of the ancient Greek philosophers. It is assumed that he had access to texts written about their lives. My narrative does not seek the validity of Pliny or Diogenes’s sources, but aims to show the common Roman intellectual mindset on the development of medicine and usage of intoxicants. We can learn from Diogenes Laertes, through his writing on the lives of Epimenides, Empedocles, Democritus, and others, how the ancient Greek philosophers had expert knowledge on religious practice, medical healing, and potent drugs.5 These details led modern-day scholars on ancient Greek religion to speculate that the pre-Socratic philosophers were western versions of Eastern Asian and early American shamans.6 Epimenides Diogenes Laertes (1.10) covers the life of the ancient Greek philosopher Epimenides (circa seventh century BCE). He was known for his knowledge of drugs, magic, and root cutting. The stories about Epimenides’s life are incredible and mythological. In Crete, Epimenides fell asleep in a cave for fifty-seven years. Then, he went to Athens and cured a plague by using divination and purification. He set up a temple to the Eumenides or Furies in Athens and publicly offered services to purify houses and fields. He (1.10.112) spent some time in solitude

38

Chapter 2

and perfected the art of root cutting. It (1.10.114) is said that he had a magical plant which allowed him not to sleep nor to eat, i.e., an appetite suppressant. He received it from the nymphs and stored it in a cow’s hoof. Nothing remains of Epimenides’s writings, and it is uncertain what contribution he would have made to medicine. Michael Psellus, a Byzantine monk and scholar from the eleventh century CE, wrote about the magical drug, which Epimenides used. In the same section covered earlier in chapter 1, “on incredible things heard,” he writes that Epimenides’s drug included opium poppy, which is known to suppress hunger. Empedocles Diogenes covers the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles, who was thought to have been a physician and a practitioner of magic. Diogenes quotes the philosopher as saying that he could offer incredible drugs which prolong one’s life. His narrative includes a story about Empedocles and how he kept a woman in a trancelike state for thirty days and then revived her. The event gained him notoriety for his medical art. He evidently offered to heal anyone who came to him. His four elements of nature conveniently line up to the four humors of ancient medicine. SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND DRUGS The philosophical schools evolving around Socrates in Classical Athens knew about psychotropic plants and human applications. Ruck (2014) sees parodies of Socrates’s drug knowledge in the comedies of Aristophanes, including the implication of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries.7 Rinella (2011) speculates on the connection between Alcibiades and Socrates and the charges against Alcibiades of profaning the mysteries.8 Socrates and his school were also knowledgeable about drugs, as were the Presocratics. Hillman (2008) sees references to drug-induced mania in the dialogues of Plato, which have Socrates as the main character.9 Rinella considers the drug expertise in the dialogues and speculates that Socrates was against drug-induced ecstasy.10 It seems that philosophy contained an ongoing discussion concerning psychotropic plants. Aristotle and students at his school wrote rationalized accounts of psychoactive drugs and their human applications. Theophrastus wrote about psychotropic plants. Some treatises ascribed to Aristotle the attempt to make sense of the properties of narcotics on humans. A fragment of Epicurus (fr. 171) from Athenaeus (7.354bc) accuses Aristotle of being a drug dealer. The implication that he sold drugs in the

Philosophical Drugs

39

market is used to discredit and defame him. Epicurus was not a fan of Aristotle. Although I have much more to say about the nonsense the drug-peddler talked, I am bringing my remarks to a close, despite my awareness that Epicurus (who was deeply devoted to the truth) said about him in his Letter on Life-Styles (fr. 171 Usener) that after he gobbled up his inheritance, he tried military service; and when he failed at that, he moved on to selling drugs. Then when Plato’s school opened, he says, he took himself off there and sat in on the lectures; he was no fool, and gradually embarked on the contemplative path. I realize that only Epicurus attacks him this way, and that neither Eubulides (fr. 61 Döring = SSR II B 10) nor Cephisodorus was reckless enough to say anything like this against the Stagirite, even though they published treatises directed against him.11

Drug-peddler is better translated as drug-dealer, indicating those who sold psychoactive plants at the markets. The implication is negative, and Epicurus is making an attack on Aristotle. Work in the markets was for the lower classes and Athenian citizens would be scrutinized if they did such things. There are few surviving fragments from Epicurus and no other mentions of Aristotle as a drug dealer. In this accusation, one may find acknowledgment that Aristotle and his circle were experts on drug knowledge. We also see the assumption that drug dealing was for the lower class and not for the educated. Roman culture would also have a low opinion of drug dealers in the market. KYKEON AND PROFANING THE MYSTERIES In Aristophanes’s Clouds (line 830), Socrates is called a Melian by Strepsiades. In the comedy, Strepsiades goes to Socrates’s school to learn how to argue his way out of debt. According to the scholiast on the passage, the reference is to Diagoras, a Melian, who was known for his impiety and was thought to have shared the secrets of the mysteries. Socrates was, of course, an Athenian and not a Melian. There was a general concern, so it seems, around the idea that philosophers might profane the mysteries. It may carry the implication that philosophers had expert knowledge about potent drugs, especially the ones used in religion. The comedy consists of an ongoing parody of Socrates and his philosophical pursuits.12 In the comedy, Socrates’s “thinkery” is filled with dazed students, looking for drugs and pontificating absurd notions about the inner workings of the universe. The chorus of clouds in the comedy may be interpreted as smoke. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates focuses on this comedy as one

40

Chapter 2

of his main accusers because it left such an impression on the audience, who made up the jury. Before the trial and death of Socrates in 399 BCE, there was a huge scandal with one of his students. Alcibiades was charged and found guilty of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries. The event occurred on the eve of the Athenian naval campaign against Sicily, during the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta. Alcibiades was a general on the mission and was tried in absentia. The ongoing war was unsuccessful for Athens and political trials were the new norm. We have little information about what Alcibiades and company did that constituted profaning the mysteries. In some accounts, it is supposed that Alcibiades had shared the sacred kykeon with foreigners and slaves in a private setting. Informers were used to make the case and bring charges against him. In Thucydides and other writers, we read about the defacing of religious statues, called Herms, around Athens on the eve of the expedition.13 He mentioned that Alcibiades and his friends celebrated the mysteries in a private setting and among noninitiates. These actions would constitute impiety and profanation of the mysteries, a major crime punishable by death. The accounts from witnesses are found in the works of Androcles (On the Mysteries), who himself testified against Alcibiades. The statements from the different witnesses vary, but the common theme is celebrating the mysteries in private with foreigners and slaves. One may assume that the severity of the charge was in response to the contents of the kykeon and not simply acting out the myth of Demeter and Persephone in front of noninitiates. At the same time, most lawsuits of this nature in Athens were politically motivated. The Athenian government feared that the incident indicated a coup. Besides Androcles, there are a few other references to the incident. In a lost comedy from Eupolis, Demes, there is a parody of a foreigner who seemingly had used the sacred drink and was caught in public. The following fragment (lines 78–95) supports the hypothesis. (INFORMER) . . . now at once, my hands are clean. (ARISTEIDES) And I am a just man. Tell me what you mean. (INFORMER) . . . who into the agora after drinking a broth, his upper lip coated with barley . . . I noticed this and went straight to the home of the foreigner. (ARISTEIDES) What did you do, you wicked cheat? (INFORMER) I ordered the stranger to give me a hundred staters of gold—he was a rich man . . . and he told me to say that after drinking . . . and then I took the gold . . . let him do whatever he wants.

Philosophical Drugs

41

(ARISTEIDES) . . . such justice. (INFORMER) . . . nor yet explanations . . . the Epidaurian did . . . but sneering down at me he slammed the door. (ARISTEIDES) Coming off very badly, you settled down.14

The informer told a government official about what he witnessed at the agora or public marketplace. The barley on the upper lip is the giveaway that the foreigner had partaken of the kykeon (broth). In another fragment, the informer is mistreated by the foreigner when he confronts him. Of course, the informer tries to bribe the foreigner and only comes forward to the government official after his mistreatment by the foreigner. Plutarch (Table Talk 621c), in writing about the proper behavior of the host of the symposium, describes the Alcibiades’s affair in the following way. “Alcibiades and Theodorus made Poulytion’s party a Telesterion with their mimicry of the torch ceremony and the initiation ritual.”15 The Telesterion is the location at Eleusis where the kykeon was consumed. The speaker in Plutarch implies that the symposium host should avoid such conduct. He means that the host should not spike the wine with drugs. Kykeon Scholars have speculated on the ingredients of the secret kykeon from the Eleusinian Mysteries. The modern-day assumption is that the drink contained a psychotropic drug, which allowed the initiates to undergo a shared mystical and religious experience. After consuming the drink, the participants would watch a reenactment of the myth and be shown the sacred objects. This part of the mysteries would occur on the last day of the festival inside the Great Hall. Burkert (1987), in his works on the mysteries, argues against the idea that the ancient Greeks used a psychotropic drug.16 In the same work, he writes about the experience of undergoing the mysteries and how it may have felt to the participants. He translates some obscure passages, which describe the event. Burkert writes, “Most impressive is a text of Plutarch that attempts to describe the presumed process of dying in terms of a mystery initiation.”17 He quotes Stobaeus (4.52.49), who is quoting a lost work of Plutarch. The topic is what it feels like when one dies. The following is a translation of the Plutarch fragment. but when that time comes, it has an experience like that of men who are undergoing initiation into great mysteries; and so the verbs teleutân (die) and teleisthai (be initiated), and the actions they denote, have a similarity. In the beginning there is straying and wandering, the weariness of running this way and that, and

42

Chapter 2

nervous journeys through darkness that reach no goal, and then immediately before the consummation every possible terror, shivering and trembling and sweating and amazement. But after this a marvelous light meets the wanderer, and open country and meadow lands welcome him; and in that place there are voices and dancing and the solemn majesty of sacred music and holy visions. And amidst these, he walks at large in new freedom, now perfect and fully initiated, celebrating the sacred rites, a garland upon his head, and converses with pure and holy men; he surveys the uninitiated, unpurified mob here on earth, the mob of living men who, herded together in mirk and deep mire, trample one another down and in their fear of death cling to their ills, since they disbelieve in the blessings of the other world. For the soul’s entanglement with the body and confinement in it are against nature, as you may discern from this.18

Plutarch, writing many centuries after the heyday of Great Mysteries, describes an experience akin to those induced by mind-altering drugs, like LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and ayahuasca. Hallucinogenic plants were used in religious rituals in ancient South America and Mesoamerica. Similar psychotropic drugs were used in the Vedic and Zoroastrian traditions under the name soma. These drugs were used to induce a psychotropic experience that was inspired by the gods. In the passage, Plutarch describes an experience which can be interpreted as a near-death experience (NDE). Psychotropic drugs are known to induce such experiences in the user.19 Anxiety and fear are often felt, followed by euphoric feelings, which are difficult to explain. The experience has been called ineffable, because only those on the substance understand it. Outsiders do not understand the experience unless they have undergone it. Although Burkert is against this idea of psychotropic drugs being in the kykeon, the examples which he cites show the sure signs of an entheogenic experience. He translates a passage from Proclus, which describes the experience of those undergoing the mysteries.20 They cause sympathy of the soul with the ritual in a way that is unintelligible to us, and divine, so that some of the initiands are stricken with panic, being filled with divine awe; others assimilate themselves to the holy symbols, leave their own identity, become at home with the gods, and experience divine possession. (Burkert’s translation)

The experience begins with fear and panic, then leads to an understanding and happiness shared with others on the same substance. Both passages contain this theme and indicate a radical change of consciousness. The mysteries promised such an experience and psychotropic drugs could provide it. Drugs played a part in religious and magical rituals because they brought about

Philosophical Drugs

43

instant and believable results. They often made the users feel better, thus being effective. In Galen’s discussion of drugs with cold properties and their effect on the soul,21 it seems that taking a psychotropic drug in small amounts may allow the user to experience the same sensations of death or the mysteries. From an ancient medical standpoint, as the cold properties invade the body, the soul attempts to flee. Kykeon as an Entheogen Burkert was reacting to a previous theory put forth in 1978 by three scholars—Wasson, Hoffman, and Ruck—in The Road to Eleusis, who argue that psychotropic drugs would be found in the kykeon. The theory has been revisited again over the years, and more scholarship supporting their theory has appeared.22 Wasson, an expert on psychotropic mushrooms and their use in religion, cites a section from Aristides (second century CE) where the Eleusinian Mysteries are described as experiencing something ineffable and not understood by others.23 Wasson relates these experiences to sacred mushroom experiences found in the ancient religious practices of South America and Mexico. In the same book, Hoffman, the chemist who first synthesized LSD, speculates on psychotropic ergot fungus being used in the kykeon.24 Ergot would be extracted from wheat and barley harvests, which had infestations of the fungus. He also speculates that ergot, which infests darnel crops, could be extracted. The ancients recognized the psychotropic effects of darnel, which will be discussed in chapter 5. In the last part of the book, Ruck, a classics scholar at Boston University, suggests that a psychotropic drug was used in the kykeon to induce the mystical visions and experiences of the initiates. He speculates on ergot fungus growing on barley crops. Ruck analyzes a scene found in Eupolis’s Demes, an ancient Greek comedy discussed above, where barley groat gives aways a foreigner’s illegal participation in the sacred mysteries. In 1992, Ruck and Wasson (et al.) published Persephone’s Quest Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, where they argued that another drug, psychotropic mushrooms, may have been used in the Lesser Mysteries. The idea of an entheogen or a drug which induces a religious experience is also defined in the work. Both publications give an abundance of background, details, and parallel cultural practices, which support their arguments. Wasson, in Persephone’s Quest, describes the psychotropic ingredient of kykeon to be ergot from barley or wheat extracted through a water process.25 The priest and priestesses who oversaw the rites of Eleusis would know the method, which would be passed down through the generations. It

44

Chapter 2

is further speculated that a local grass in Eleusis may have provided a better and more efficient source of ergot fungus. Wasson mentions the word entheogen and why it better fits the psychotropic drugs used in religious experiences.26 The word hallucinogenic is ill-fitting because it implies that the user is seeing things that are not there, whereas most users of psychotropic drugs leave the episode feeling that the experience was genuine. The word psychedelics is also discouraged because of its association with mass or popular drug culture. The entheogen, then, is a drug taken during a religious ritual, which allows the user to feel the inspiration of the god. Wasson was studying these drug-induced practices found in South America/ Mesoamerica and similar ones found in the Vedic/Zoroastrian traditions. The ancient Greeks and Romans embraced the idea of a god-induced inspiration. Music and poetry were thought to be inspired by the Muses and act in a similar manner as drugs. For instance, Plato’s Ion covers the topic that poetry and poetic performance were inspired by the gods. There are so many references to god-induced inspiration in the Greco-Roman world that it would require another book to cover them all. Inspiration was an accepted concept in these cultures. The types of mania mentioned in myths and by ancient writers, which are covered in this book, assume that madness was induced by the gods or at least by the drugs.27 The ancient Roman doctor Galen (Definitiones medicae 19.462.15) wrote about enthousiamos as experiencing ecstasy or madness from a god. “Enthousiasmos is the same as when some people go out of their senses after the fumigations when they look upon the sacrifices or hear the tympani, flutes, or cymbals.” And in the same section (19.462.10), he defines ecstasis as temporary madness or mania. It is interesting that our modern-day word enthusiasm comes from the ancient Greek word, enthousiazmos. For Galen, the feeling may be induced by listening to hypnotic sounds or inhaling fumigation, which would contain psychotropic drugs. As mentioned above, Pliny describes a type of nightshade as being used for prophetic episodes by practitioners of magic. At the same time, doctors like Celsus were prepared to treat people who suffered from mania, which was considered a mental symptom. In Persephone’s Quest, Wasson speculates on psychotropic mushrooms being used in the Lesser Mysteries and as the drug in soma used by Vedic and Zoroastrian religions. The identification of the ancient soma is just as unknown as the ingredients of kykeon. Wasson, admitting Ruck’s help, wonders whether the ancient Greeks used the soma mushroom in their mysteries. Psychotropic mushrooms were common throughout Europe, and different

Philosophical Drugs

45

cultures used them. Wasson also covers a myriad of psychotropic mushroom references throughout western European history. In the same book, Ruck covers the scandal of the profanation of the mysteries by Alcibiades in 415 BCE and how Aristophanes and other ancient comic poets made parodies of profaning the mysteries. Through an analysis of a scene in Aristophanes’s Birds (lines 1553–64), Ruck describes Socrates necromancing the dead in the swamp of Dionysus, located in Athens, and how it is a reference to the celebration of the Lesser Mysteries.28 He speculates that psychotropic mushrooms may have been an ingredient used during the Lesser Mysteries. The scene includes Socrates, who would face charges of impiety, and the implication is that Socrates had at some point profaned the mysteries or was rumored to have done so. Kykeon in Ancient Greek Literature The drink has a few appearances in the canon of surviving ancient works. The kykeon shows up in a surviving fragment (fr. 39) from Hipponax, the ancient Greek iambic poet (sixth century BCE).29 I will surrender my grieving soul to an evil end, if you do not send me a bushel of barley as quickly as you can, so that I may make a potion (kykeon) from the groats to drink as a cure (pharmakon) for my suffering.30

The speaker, likely a poor beggar named Bucephalus, admits he is suicidal and grieving. Accordingly, he begs for a cure for his suffering. In particular, he wants a kykeon with barley groats and calls the drink a drug. In Rosen’s analysis, the drug is meant to cure his mind and body, even his poverty. Theophrastus mentions a kykeon in his comical sketch of characters with bad social manners. He wrote (section 4) a segment about the boorish man, by which he means the crude man, one who lacks sophistication. Boorishness would seem to be an embarrassing lack of sophistication. The boor is the sort who drinks a posset (kykeon) before going to the assembly, and claims that perfume smells no sweeter than thyme. . . . He drinks his wine too strong.31

It is difficult to know what faux pas the crude man would commit by drinking kykeon before going to the assembly. Seeing that he is also known for drinking too much, it is possible that the kykeon he drinks causes intoxication and that he is going to the assembly intoxicated. To the translator of the passage, the problem is with the pungent smell of thyme. Kykeon was also a normal drink without any psychotropic drugs. It is not easy to tell which kind is mentioned in ancient authors.

46

Chapter 2

PLINY AGAINST MAGIC AND PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS Pliny (30.1) traces the origins of magic, while constantly emphasizing his own skepticism toward its practices.32 He writes that the “fraudulent art” of magic had held power over people’s beliefs for many ages. Pliny says that magic’s efficacy comes from its use of plants and medicine. It remains popular because it is curative. Magic offers its clients the same power found in religious practice and the ability to predict one’s future or fate. Pliny reports that the tradition of magic began in Persia with Zoroaster, who would have lived during the Bronze Age. Pliny supplies a long list of drugs and their mythological or divine inventors. In one section (25.25), he expresses scorn for the Greeks, who included in their botany plants with psychotropic properties. I myself am amazed that the Greeks have described plants, even harmful plants, and not the poisonous ones only, since the state of human life is such that death is frequently a harbor of refuge even for the most excellent of men, . . . But what excuse was there to point out the means of deranging the mind, of causing abortion, and of many similar crimes? I personally do not mention abortives, nor even love-philtres, remembering as I do that the famous general Lucullus was killed by a love-philtre, nor yet any other unholy magic, unless it be by way of warning or denunciation, especially as I have utterly condemned all faith in such practices. Enough pains, and more than enough, will have been taken if I point out plants healthful to life and discovered in order to preserve it.33

Pliny is not a lone voice in being against harmful drugs and magical practices. The ancient Greek and Roman world provide many examples from literature and forensics, which show trials and laws against psychoactive, deadly drugs, as well as magical practitioners. ANCIENT LAWSUITS AGAINST DRUGS The ancient world had laws against dangerous drugs and poisoning, but most examples of illicit drug use appear in court cases concerning poisoning. Love magic was cited as a defense in some murder charges. Love potions were procured by wives to use on their husbands with good intentions, but sometimes the drug was too much and resulted in death. Love potions could quickly become deadly if administered improperly.34 At the same time, in some lawsuits, the love potion is thought to be a cover for committing the murder.

Philosophical Drugs

47

The image of the women killing her husband with a love potion may be found in a scene from Sophocles’s Women of Trachis.35 In the tragedy, Deianeira becomes suspicious that Heracles is having an affair and loves another woman. She procures and uses a love potion to win back his affections. The love magic ends up killing Hercules, and Deianeira kills herself once she realizes the outcome. The love potion is in the form of an ointment rubbed on a robe. Her son defends her by claiming that she was trying to use a love potion. Heracles, who is alive long enough to learn the cause, understands that she was not trying to kill him. In the following lines (1136–42), Hyllus and Heracles discuss her motives and the source of the potion. Hyllus: She did altogether wrong, but her intent was good. Heracles: Was it a good action, villain, to kill your father? Hyllus: Why, she went wrong thinking that she was applying a philtre, having seen the bride who is in the house! Heracles: And who among the men of Trachis is so great a sorcerer? Hyllus: Nessus the Centaur long ago persuaded her to inflame your passion with such a love charm.36

She received the potion from the mythological Centaur, who was thought to be an expert on drugs. Heracles forgives her for the fatal error because he understands her intentions. The ancient Greek audience would be familiar with the idea of the wife giving the husband a love potion. Faraone (2001) cites a passage from Plutarch on “Martial Advice” (Moralia 139a) where the idea is emphasized as being common but dangerous.37 The passage is as follows: Fishing with poison is a quick way to catch fish and an easy method of taking them, but it makes the fish inedible and bad. In the same way women who artfully employ love-potions and magic spells upon their husbands, and gain the mastery over them through pleasure, find themselves consorts of dull-witted, degenerate fools. The men bewitched by Circe were of no service to her, nor did she make the least use of them after they had been changed into swine and asses, while for Odysseus, who had sense and showed discretion in her company, she had an exceeding great love.38

For Plutarch, Homer’s Circe is an example of the illicit use of love magic by women against men. Odysseus had the common sense to counteract her attempts and win her true love. Plutarch takes an allegorical view of this

48

Chapter 2

episode, but also indicates the outcome of the love potion as harmful to Odysseus’s crew. A few lawsuits from the ancient Greek world contain the theme of women poisoning their husbands or lovers with love potions. A fifth-century BCE forensics speech from Antiphon, Against the Stepmother, covers such an incident. A stepson brings murder charges against his stepmother who poisoned and killed his father. Collins (2008) summarizes the case thus, This case involves the death of two male friends, one of whom is the father of the prosecutor and husband to the stepmother named in the title, while the other is named Philoneus. Philoneus had a mistress, who was probably a slave, whom Philoneus was planning to set up as a prostitute. Upon learning this, the stepmother befriends the mistress, shares in her grief, and then encourages her to give both Philoneus and her husband a philtron ‘love charm,’ to which the prosecutor refers by the more ambiguous term pharmakon. This would renew Philoneus’ affection for his mistress and the husband’s for the stepmother, provided everything went according to plan. Sometime later both Philoneus and the husband traveled to Peiraieus to celebrate the sacrificial rites of Zeus Ctesius, and after dinner the mistress slipped the philtron into their wine. She put more of it into Philoneus’ drink, however, thinking that more of the love charm would induce him to love her more. Each man drank his last drink—Philoneus died immediately and the husband became ill and died twenty days later.39

The slave involved in the incident was already found guilty and punished by death. It seems the mistress used the slave as a procurer and as the fall girl in case things went wrong. It was thought in the ancient world that slaves and lower-class people had access to these drugs. The stepson believes the poisoning was not innocent, because it was the second time his stepmother was caught attempting such a deed. The stepson says the following about the previous occasion: Antiphon Section 9–10 “Prosecution of a stepmother for poisoning” In the first place, I was ready to torture the defendants’ slaves, who knew that this woman, my opponents’ mother, had planned to poison our father on a previous occasion as well, that our father had caught her in the act, and that she had admitted everything—save that it was not to kill him, but to restore his love that she alleged herself to be giving him the potion.40

From the argument, one can assume that it was common for people to buy dangerous love potions. It was not far-fetched that it could be used as a cover to poison someone. The incident concerning Theoris of Lemnos comes from Hellenistic times.41 Theoris was tried as a sorceress and put to death along with her

Philosophical Drugs

49

family. Theoris is described in Demosthenes Against Aristogeiton as a drug dealer and practitioner of magic. We do not have the original court case which convicted Theoris nor the list of the charges against her. She is mentioned in Demosthenes in an attempt to discredit testimony from a witness, who supposedly associated with Theoris. She is described thus in the lawsuit: What need to say anything about him? He is his own brother to the defendant, born of the same father and mother, and, to add to his misfortunes, he is his twin. It was this brother—I pass over the other facts—who got possession of the drugs and charms from the servant of Theoris of Lemnos, the filthy sorceress whom you put to death on that account with all her family. She gave information against her mistress, and this rascal has had children by her, and with her help he plays juggling tricks and professes to cure fits, being himself subject to fits of wickedness of every kind. So this is the man who will beg him off! This poisoner, this public pest, whom any man would ban at sight as an evil omen rather than choose to accost him, and who has pronounced himself worthy of death by bringing such an action. (Pseudo Demosthenes Against Aristogeiton, 1.79–80)42

The witness had bought dangerous drugs and magic from Theoris’s slave. The image brings up again the role of the lower class and slaves in the dealing of drugs in the ancient world. The slave had ultimately testified against Theoris. The speaker’s point is that anyone who was associated with Theoris should be punished by death. Collins also brings up the example of Nino, a woman mentioned in Demosthenes who was found guilty of manufacturing love drugs and distributing them to others.43 As with Theoris, there is no stable narrative of Nino’s crime. It seems that she was punished for initiating foreigners into Bacchic mysteries and that distributing drugs was part of the accusation against her. In Plato’s Republic (2 364b–d), there is an image of the door-to-door drug dealer and sorcerer: Wandering priests and prophets approach the doors of the wealthy and persuade them that they have a power from the gods conveyed through sacrifices and incantations, and any wrong committed against someone either by an individual or his ancestors can be expiated with pleasure and feasting. Or if he wishes to injure any enemy of his, for a small outlay he will be able to harm just and unjust alike with certain spells and incantations through which they can persuade the gods, they say, to serve their ends.44

Magic and drugs were not outright banned in the ancient Greek and Roman world, but misuse of drugs and magic, especially against others, was a crime. In the late Roman republic, there is a mention of a traveling drug dealer in a court case from Cicero (Pro Cluentio). He mentions a traveling drug dealer,

50

Chapter 2

who helped poison someone for money. The poisoning is not the main topic of the court case. Cicero is attempting to discredit Oppiancus. Again, is it not patent, Oppianicus, that your father murdered your grandmother, Dinea, whose heir you are? For when he introduced to her that doctor of his, so notorious and so often “successful,” the poor lady cried out that she absolutely declined to be attended by one whose attentions had lost her all her children. Thereupon he at once approached one Lucius Clodius of Ancona, a travelling quack, who happened to be visiting Larinum, and came to an understanding with him for 2000 sesterces, as is shown in his own accounts. Clodius was in a hurry, having many other market-towns to visit, so he finished his task directly he was brought in. He killed the woman with the first draught he gave her, and not another moment did he linger in Larinum.45

Cicero describes an expert in poisons and drugs who travels from town to town. Clodius’s work is shady and illegal. He leaves town quick and tries to escape suspicion. He presents himself as a doctor and drug expert. His skills include poisoning for a price. In the ancient Greek and Roman world, the one who supplied the poison, even if an expert, could be liable for murder. There was a line between accidental overdose and premeditated murder. There was suspicion around people who imported and sold these potent and deadly drugs. Apuleius, a Roman novelist, lived during the second century CE in the Roman Empire. We have his account of his own court case, the Apologia, where he faced charges of bewitching a widow for her inheritance. Her family brought the charges against him. If someone suspected magic with nefarious ends, for instance manipulating another person or their property, then criminal charges could be invoked. Throughout the trial, Apuleius defends his possession of and knowledge about deadly drugs. Apuleius writes: Suppose for example I had bought hellebore, hemlock, or poppy juice and other such items as well, medicinal when used moderately but harmful when mixed or excessive, who would put up with listening to you if you charged me with poisoning because of them, just because they can be used to kill someone?46

There was a fine line between poison and medicine. These drugs were so common that it was to no avail to accuse someone of attempted murder just for possessing them. Apuleius defends his possession of magical statuettes and knowledge of intoxicating herbs as fit accoutrements for a philosopher and amateur doctor. His testimony contains the common ancient mindset on intoxicants: a little was fine, too much was dangerous.

Philosophical Drugs

51

In another section of the Apologia (43), Apuleius describes the high one feels from inhaling incense. I also reflect on the fact that the human soul, especially when young and innocent, can be lulled to sleep either by seductive spells or by soothing odors, and can thus be distracted into forgetting the present; then, in a brief suspension of its physical memory, it reverts and returns to its true nature, which of course is immortal and divine, and thus foretells future events in a kind of trance.47

Incense had many different uses. Apuleius (32) tells the court that frankincense and myrrh were bought for medical and personal reasons, besides attending funerals. His larger point in his defense is that there are other contexts and settings for psychotropic drugs. LAWS AGAINST DRUGS The ancient world practiced magic, but it also had limits to what was acceptable and legal. Magic and drugs used to harm others or their property were suspect. Some laws survive which show the illegality of procuring and distributing poisons. Collins covers a law from the Greek city of Teos from the fifth century BCE and speculates that Athens had a similar law.48 It outlaws the manufacture and administering of deadly drugs (pharmaka). The law calls for the death of the practitioner and their family. Surviving legal orations from the Greek and Roman world confirm that one could be punished for such actions. The buying and selling, as well as the usage of psychotropic drugs was not illegal or suspicious. The issue with these items concerns using them as poisons or actually poisoning others with them. In the Roman Empire, the laws were codified, and laws against psychotropic drugs were included. There were penalties against drug dealers who sell their wares for the use of poisoning. 3. Marcianus, Institutes, Book XIV. Anyone who has prepared poison, or sells it, or keeps it for the purpose of killing human beings, is punished by the Fifth Section of the same Cornelian Law relating to Assassins and Poisoners. The penalty of this law is imposed upon any one who publicly sells injurious poisons or keeps them for the purpose of homicide.

52

Chapter 2

The expression “injurious poisons” shows that there are certain poisons which are not injurious. Therefore the term is an ambiguous one, and includes what can be used for curing disease as well as for causing death. There also are preparations called love philtres. These, however, are only forbidden by this law where they are designed to kill people. A woman was ordered by a decree of the Senate to be banished, who, not with malicious intent, but offering a bad example, administered for the purpose of producing conception a drug which, having been taken, caused death. It is provided by another Decree of the Senate that dealers in ointments who rashly sell hemlock, salamander, aconite, pine-cones, bu-prestis, mandragora, and give cantharides as a purgative, are liable to the penalty of this law. (omitted) The penalty of the Cornelian Law relating to Assassins and Poisoners is deportation to an island and the confiscation of all property. It is, however, at present customary to inflict capital punishment, unless the parties in question occupy such a high position that they are not amenable to the law. It is customary for persons of inferior rank to be thrown to wild beasts, and for those higher in the social scale to be deported to an island.49

The drug dealers in the markets as well as the one’s buying the drugs could be liable if the drugs were used for nefarious purposes.50 There are allowances made for love potions and medical uses. The law and its penalties testify to the widespread availability and usage of psychoactive drugs during the Roman Empire. NOTES 1. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 142–43. 2. Ibid. 144–45 3. Ibid. 4. Trans. Spencer 1935, 4–5. 5. See Hillman 2008, 39, 161–75, Irwin 2016, 268, Rinella 2011, 150–55, Scarborough 1991, Scarborough 2006, Luck 2006, and Bremmer 2002 for ancient philosophers as experts on drugs. 6. Bremmer 2002, 27–41 for a discussion; also see Rinella 2011 and Hillman 2008 for discussions. Ogden 2002, 18–42 for different analysis. 7. See Ruck 2014. 8. See Rinella 2011, 84–134. 9. Hillman 2008, 177–79 10. Rinella 2011, 150–60.

Philosophical Drugs

53

11. Trans. Olsen 2008, vol. 4, 120–21. 12. This analysis is found in Ruck 1992, 2014 and Rinella 2011. 13. See Thucydides 6.28–29 and 6.53–60 where these events are mentioned. 14. Trans. Storey 2011, 108–11. 15. Trans. Clement and Hoffleit 1969, vol. 8, 56–57. 16. See Burkert 1987, 108–14. 17. Ibid., 91. 18. Trans. Sandback 1969, vol. 15, 316–19. 19. See Lake 2019 for a discussion of NDE and psychotropic drugs. 20. Burkert 1987, 114, 171 footnote. 21. See chapter 1 for the discussion. 22. For instance, see Webster 2000. 23. Wasson et al. 1978/1998, 4. 24. Ibid., 8–11. 25. Wasson et al. 1992, 33. 26. Ibid., 30. 27. Mania, ecstasis, and enthousiasmos are terms found in medical texts and other surviving ancient works. They indicate hallucination and mind-alteration. See Rinella 2011, 36–37, Luck 2006, 479–92, and Hillman 2008, 60 for discussions of these states of mind. 28. Wasson et al. 1992, 159–60. 29. See Rosen 1987 for analysis of this fragment. 30. Trans. Gerber 1999, 384–85. 31. Trans. Rusten 2003, 60–61. 32. See Hillman 2008, 117 for a discussion of Pliny and skepticism of magic. 33. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 154–55. 34. See Faraone 2001, 113–14 for this discussion and for love potions in general. See Collins 2008, 132–64 for magic and the law. 35. Ibid., 110–12. 36. Trans. Lloyd-Jones 1994, 234–37. 37. Faraone 2001, 113. 38. Trans. Babbit 1929, 302–3. 39. Collins 2008, 135. 40. Trans. Maidment 1941, 136–39. 41. See Collins 2008, 136–39. 42. Trans. Vince 1935, 562–65. 43. Collins 2008, 138–39 44. Trans. Emlyn-Jones 2013, 142–45. 45. Trans. Hodge 1927, 260–363. 46. Trans. Jones 2017, 88–89. 47. Trans. Ibid., 110–11. 48. Collins 2008, 134. 49. Scott 1932 Digitized here: https:​//​droitromain​.univ​-grenoble​-alpes​.fr​/Anglica​/ D48​_Scott​.htm​#VIII.

54

Chapter 2

50. For the nefarious usage of drugs, see Irwin 2006, 429, Hillman 2008, 70–83, 158–59, Nutton 1985, 139–41, Jones-Lewis 2016, 406, 414–15, and Scarborough 1996, 22. See Cilliers and Retief 2014 and Hobenreich and Rizzzelli 2015 for discussions about poisoning and ancient law.

Chapter 3

Hellebore

Hellebore has an abundance of appearances throughout the Ancient Greek and Roman canon of surviving works. Hellebore was used to treat mental illness symptoms and there was an attitude associated with using the drug and with people who used it (too much) or needed multiple treatments. There was a running joke in the ancient Greek and Roman world that if you acted crazy, you needed to take hellebore, possibly a dozen times, depending on how crazy.1 In Theophrastus’s Characters, which contains a series of satirical sketches of people and bad habits, there is a section (20) on the man with bad taste. The man talks about his stool from his last hellebore treatment while at the dinner table and thus at an unwelcome time. There is an element of implied scatological humor in the comic and other references to the drug. The scatological humor is one reason that the running joke of doing the treatment repetitively is humorous to the audience. Black hellebore was used in ancient Greek and Roman medicine as a downward purgative and for the treatment of mental illness symptoms and other medical symptoms. It was available in the open markets in both cultures and was sold by drug dealers in their stalls. There were doctors who specialized in hellebore treatment. Some wines were made with hellebore. There is testimony that hellebore was used for artistic and intellectual stimulation, as well as for recreation. The Greeks and Romans knew how to lower the dosage of hellebore so that one could feel its mind-altering effects without the purging. THEOPHRASTUS Theophrastus writes about hellebore in different parts of his History of Plants. In book 9, Theophrastus explains how medicinal plants are harvested and extracted. Root cutters, who were specialists in harvesting medicinal plants, 55

56

Chapter 3

have passed on the knowledge how some parts of the plants are used for healing, including the roots, fruits, extracted juice, leaves, and plant matter. It seems that root cutters and drug dealers were long-standing experts in preparing medicinal herbs and making poisons. Theophrastus explains that these plants and their extracts were highly sought after by many people, presumably because they were effective. Theophrastus (9.8.4) describes how root cutters harvested hellebore and its roots. Hellebore and other medicinal plants are hazardous and toxic to the one harvesting them. Theophrastus includes hemlock and opium poppy as examples of drugs which are harmful to harvest. Hemlock is used for poisoning a person, but also had medical and recreational uses. Root cutters practice magic and use magical rituals during their task of harvesting plants. Theophrastus thought that some of the practices of the root cutters were necessary, while others were superstitious and nonsense. Hellebore is harvested carefully because it affects the one harvesting it. Theophrastus writes that touching the plant and its roots can make the head heavy, which means that it made the user high or had a psychotropic effect. To counteract the effects of hellebore, the root cutter takes garlic and unmixed wine. The strong smell of garlic is supposed to counteract the strong smell of hellebore. The wine was supposed to counteract the intoxicating effects of the plant. Theophrastus dismisses as unnecessary other rituals prescribed by the root cutters. For instance, when harvesting mandrake, the root cutter is supposed to draw circles around the plant with a sword, cut it while facing a certain direction, dance around the plant, and make enchantments. Hellebore had similar rituals for harvesting. Theophrastus writes about the power or potency of each plant and how it is found in different parts of the plant. The plants used in medicine are harvested in specific ways and during specific seasons. Hellebore root and its fruit are usable. He writes that hellebore may be used for wounds, gout, sleep, and love magic. It was used for the same purposes as mandrake, although mandrake did not purge. Section 9.10 begins Theophrastus’s hellebore entry. Black and white hellebore are not the same plants. People learned about the effects of the two hellebores by watching domesticated animals eat them and seeing the outcome. One kind (white) purged upward, while the other (black) purged downward. Inhabitants of Mt. Oeta harvest the plant for annual meetings of the Amphictyons; it is assumed that the plant was sold at these meetings. Theophrastus writes that Hellebore grows all over Greece, including Boeotia, Euboea, and Mt. Helicon, which he calls “rich in medicinal herbs.” He implies that there is a market for hellebore, where people buy and sell it in Parnassus and Aetolia. The common practice for magic and religion was to

Hellebore

57

purify horses and sheep with black hellebore, while enchanting. Both types of hellebore (white and black) were in high demand. People of Anticyra are known for administering hellebore for treating mental health. Anticrya is referenced by many other authors, who mention the plant directly and indirectly.2 As much as one might tell another to take hellebore for their actions, one might instead tell them to sail to Anticyra. In Section 9.17, Theophrastus explains that people develop a tolerance to drugs. The effects diminish and some people become immune because of habitual use.3 He writes about a famous druggist and poisoner by the name of Thrasyas, who had a high tolerance to hellebore and could consume large quantities, while not feeling any effects. Thrasyas is known for growing, harvesting, and preparing drugs and poisons; he is an expert and works in the market. Theophrastus describes the scene in the market with the drug dealers and their stalls. Shepherds with high tolerance to certain drugs would go to the stalls of the drug dealers in the markets and consume large quantities of the dealer’s products publicly. They would show that the drugs had no potency. They would do this to discredit the drug dealers and Theophrastus says that they acted this way every day. Thrasyas understood how drugs affected people and how drugs may affect people differently based on their constitution or how much they had used the drug before. The ancient world understood drug tolerance. Theophrastus shares a story of how a drug dealer named Eudemus from Chios took doses of hellebore all day at his stall in the market. He did not suffer any effects for the entire day and evening. The drug dealer knew the antidote, which was unmixed wine, and took it as well throughout the day. The scene represents recreational drug usage in the markets by the vendors and customers. It shows a commonality of intoxicating drugs in the everyday lives of this culture. The emphasis is on leisure, recreation, and self-healing. ANTICYRA Pausanias (second century CE) wrote about Greek geography and in his Descriptions of Greece (10.36), he discusses Anticyra. He describes how black hellebore purges down and white purges up. In another section (10.37.7), Pausanias says that the Athenian general Solon beat the Cirrhaeans during a siege by poisoning the city’s water supply with hellebore. The purging effects caused the guards of the city to leave their posts. The account is an early example of biological warfare.4 Strabo (first century BCE–first century CE) wrote about geography. He (9.3) mentions hellebore and its popularity in his description of Anticyra.

58

Chapter 3

Strabo writes that hellebore is grown and prepared in Maliac Anticyra, that their treatment using hellebore was effective, and that many people travel there to be purged and cured. ANCIENT COMEDY The idea of needing to take hellebore to treat insanity or drunkenness may be seen in ancient Greek and Roman comedy. It seems to have been a running joke which was understood by both cultures. Examples from Aristophanes, Menander, and Plautus will be used to exemplify this joke. These instances testify to the commonality of the drug and its usage. Aristophanes A mention of hellebore occurs in Aristophanes’s Wasps, a comedy which in many ways deals with mental health disorders and addiction. The main character, LoveCleon, is addicted to serving as a juror in the Athenian law courts and his family stages an intervention so that he will stop serving as a juror. At the end of the comedy, he gets drunk, acts insane, and is told that he needs hellebore treatment. The comedy aims to make fun of the Athenian politician Cleon and the Athenian court system. It was written and performed during the brief peace of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. During this time, the Athenian government paid a decent wage to jurors for their service. Citizens could make a living by serving on juries. The attempt at intervention on behalf of the family proves to be unsuccessful as a chorus of jurors arrives at the house and attempts to persuade LoveCleon back to a life of jury service. A contest (agon) emerges between LoveCleon and his son, HateCleon. At the end of the debate, LoveCleon leaves and attends a drinking symposium, where he becomes very intoxicated and acts outrageously. According to the narrative, LoveCleon does not typically drink wine and his son has convinced him to partake. As he leaves the symposium, drunk, he begins to act violently toward people on the streets and has stolen the flute girl from the party for his own enjoyment. By the time he arrives home, he has incurred the hatred of those he abused in the street, and lawsuits are called against him. His son puts him in the house to hide him from the chaos. It is around this time (line 1475) that the reference to hellebore occurs. The scene begins with an acknowledgment that the god of wine and intoxication, Dionysus, has taken over the house because LoveCleon, who is unaccustomed to wine and symposium, is now drunk. LoveCleon has emerged

Hellebore

59

from the house, dancing in the style of tragic performance and making a fool of himself. The slave of the household, Xanthias, is standing guard outside at the gate when he sees LoveCleon emerging. Xanthias comments (ln 1487) that the master of the house is acting insane (mania) and he says, “Go and drink hellebore” and “Soon you’ll be pelted.”5 The hellebore would be useful in helping LoveCleon recover from madness and drunkenness. The reference to being pelted with stones refers to mentally ill people acting out in public and being hit with rocks by onlookers on the streets. LoveCleon is called drunk and mentally ill in a pejorative sense. His actions are unacceptable to the household and to public norms. There is an attitude in ancient Greek and Roman culture that too much wine will cause a person to become violent, insane, and incur legal liabilities. Hellebore was psychotropic and produced a drunken-like hallucinogenic or mind-altering experience in the user. Ancient medicine thought that a drug which produced similar effects can be used to treat the same symptom in the patient. A person who is drunk or has signs of mania or madness may be treated with a drug which causes intoxication and madness. The ancient rationale for using hellebore to treat madness was that it produces madness, i.e., like negates like. The rationale works in the other direction, where one may take wine to counteract the effects of hellebore, for instance when harvesting it. This rationale helps understand the meaning behind the comic portrayal of the drug, when it appears on the stage. Menander A fragment from Menander mentions hellebore and implies that it was commonly used for recreational intoxication. Menander (fourth to third century BCE) wrote New Comedy during the Hellenistic Age. The genre had undergone many changes from Old Comedy (represented by Aristophanes). In a lost comedy from Menander titled Pipe Girls (fr. 69), one female character asks the another, “Did you ever drink hellebore at any point, Sosias?” and she responds, “Just once.” To which the first character replies, “Drink it again now, because you’re seriously insane!”6 The comical portrayal of hellebore treatment usually includes the additional jibe that the person must undergo the treatment repeatedly. Nothing is known about the lost comedy, but the title implies that it involved the girls who entertained at drinking parties. These positions were filled by slaves, foreigners, and hourly workers, typically of the lower classes. The two characters speaking in the scene are causally discussing their history of drug usage, not medicine. The upper classes did these drugs as well, but it is thought that the lower classes had easy access to them. There was a stigma

60

Chapter 3

associated with procuring, dealing, and using these substances, unless it was under the supervision of a doctor. Plautus Our earliest surviving references to hellebore in the Roman Republic come from the comic performances of Plautus (third to second century BCE). Roman comedy had its own flavor, but mostly used New Comedy as its model. In Plautus’s Brothers Menaechmus, a man goes to Epidamnus to find his long-lost twin brother. Both men are named Menaechmus. In a comedy of errors, the two brothers constantly miss meeting each other. The twin brother from Syracuse is mistaken for the Menaechmus of Epidamnus by his wife, lover, friends, and family members. The people who claim to know him notice that he is not behaving like himself and decide to call in a doctor to treat his symptoms, seemingly mental. The comedy relies on the twin brothers switching places, one entering while the other leaves, not noticing each other. When the doctor arrives, Menaechmus from Syracuse has left the scene, and Menaechmus from Epidamnus has entered. He is unaware of the actions of the Menaechmus of Syracuse which caused the family to call the doctor. When the doctor questions him to see if he is insane, he is in denial of there being anything wrong. The doctor then comments (act 5, scene 5) that the case is so difficult that it cannot be treated with hellebore. As he continues to question the patient, his father-in-law insists that Menaechmus speaks nonsense (deliramenta) and is acting insane (insania). Ultimately the twins meet each other, and there is no need for the hellebore. The hellebore joke may be found in other comedies from Plautus. In The Cheat or Pseudolus, a reference appears in act 4 scene 7, where Harpax calls Ballio and Simo crazy because they think he is an imposter. Haprax tells the two men that they need hellebore. The comedy is complex and concerns a man named Calidorus and his slave Simo trying to save a prostitute from being sold because Calidorus wants to marry her. In the scene, Ballio and Simo had just been fooled by another character pretending to be Harpax. Then the real one appears and they think that he is fooling them. In the end, Calidorus saves the prostitute. In another comedy from Plautus, The Fisherman, a hellebore reference appears in act 4, scene 3. Two slaves argue over the discovery of a treasure chest. Gripus found the trunk while fishing, and Trachalio wants a share of treasure. The two have a semi-philosophical debate about whose treasure chest it really is and nearly come to physical blows. Gripus asks Trachalio, “Are you insane?” and Trachlio replies, “I am in need of hellebore (elleborosus).”

Hellebore

61

The three comic references from Plautus mention hellebore in a similar manner as Aristophanes and Menander. It is used to imply that the other character or characters are insane, suffering madness, or extremely drunk. The drug may be referenced instead of calling the person insane or out of their mind. This tendency would indicate that the ancient audience commonly used the drug and knew about its applications. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Hellebore references may be found in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Mention of hellebore is used to imply that a person or group of people, even a whole nation, is insane and needs treatment. The drug also appears as one used by philosophers for inspiration and as a rite of passage or a mark of a tested philosopher. Plato A reference to hellebore is found in the philosopher Plato, in his Euthydemus. It appears in one response as a biting retort between two interlocutors. In the dialogue, Socrates recounts to Crito an earlier dialogue, which took place the day before at the Lyceum with himself and two brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, along with their peers. The brothers are experts in the art of argumentation and sophism. Socrates encourages them to show off their skills. Their arguments are absurd, nonsensical, and bellicose. Socrates does not agree with their endless argumentation and allows it to continue to show its absurd nature. The brothers and other interlocutors enjoy beating each other in argument and showing off their rhetorical skills. In the scene (299b), Euthydemus and Ctesippus have gone in heated rounds with absurd arguments. During the bitter exchange over what is good and whether the good is good, Euthydemus asks Ctesippus whether it is good for a sick person to drink a drug (pharmakon). The argument does not really fit in with the previous absurd banter, but Euthydemus is in the process of making a joke aimed at Ctesippus. After Ctesippus agrees to Euthydemus’s points, Euthydemus continues by asking if, since it is good for a sick person to drink a drug, whether it is good for that sick person to drink the drug all the time. The unstated answer is no, and Ctessipus falls for the trap. He has to admit that the good is not always good. Euthydemus ends the joke by adding that one should “pound and infuse a cart-load of hellebore into the drug.”7 In this way, he calls Ctessipus crazy.

62

Chapter 3

The argument surrounds the idea of whether a good thing is always good. Euthydemus adds the last line about hellebore to call Ctesippus insane and to perhaps make the comic idea of taking a massive dose and thus purging. There is also the attitude toward using drugs and whether there is such a thing as too much usage or abuse. The idea that too much of a good thing is bad seems to be at play. The reference to hellebore is made as a joke and as a slap at one’s opponent in philosophical debate. The audience reading or hearing the dialogue would have to understand the hellebore reference. Hellebore, when it appears in the literature, often acts as a colloquial for calling someone insane (and thus in need of the treatment). It is used this way whether the situation is serious or comic. ROMAN PHILOSOPHY Hellebore references may be found throughout Roman poetry and philosophy. The examples in this section contain poems with a philosophical spin, which reveal the philosophical stance of the speaker. Horace’s poetry is filled with philosophical insight, especially his satires. Other poets include the satirist Persius and a letter from Ovid. A recurring sentiment in Roman literature is that the world and people are insane and need the hellebore treatment. Horace In a satire (2.3) from Horace (first century BCE), the poet addresses his friend Damasippus, a merchant, with whom he used to do business. It seems that Damasippus has given up the life of collecting antiquities and has chosen a Stoic path. Horace’s Stoic response is that everyone is crazy, regardless of the path they chose. His satire is filled with references to Stoic ideas that all people are insane. The Stoic school of the ancient Greek philosopher Chrysippus is mentioned. In his philosophy, people are considered crazy and driven by ignorance of truth. Chrysippus was known to have taken hellebore for inspiration. At lines 82–83, Horace writes that a large amount of hellebore should be given to the greedy. Here it applies to an entire population. He wonders why all of Anticyra has not been given the task of administering such a large dose. An incredibly huge dose is imagined for emphasis and comic relief.

Hellebore

63

Persius In a satire (4.14–16) from Persius (first century CE) there is a reference to Anticyra, which is meant to indicate hellebore. The poet imagines a dialogue where Socrates addresses and corrects the young Alcibiades. He chastises Alcibiades’s arrogance and tells him that he needs to drink the whole island full of Anticyra unmixed or undiluted (Anticyras melior sorbere meracas). Ovid Ovid (first century BCE to first century CE) was exiled from the Roman Empire and lived out the rest of his life in the Black Sea. The poet wrote a long poem in the form of a letter about his exile titled Ex Ponto. Ovid did not like the culture and world where he lived because it did not have his accustomed comforts. His poem is filled with laments about his new surroundings. In this passage (lines 51–54), only hellebore can represent his level of frustration: If anybody had said to me, “You shall go to the Euxine shore and you shall fear wounds from a Getic bow,” I would have said, “Go, drink a potion that clears the brain—everything that Anticyra produces.”8

Hellebore is implied and its usage is described as clearing the brain. Ovid is using the drug as a treatment for mental distress and it would require all the products of Anticyra to treat him. Epictetus The stoic philosopher Epictetus (first century CE), living in the Roman Empire, has a reference to hellebore in his Discourses (book 2, chapter 15). He writes an imagined dialogue with a student asking for philosophical advice. The student says that he wants to understand the notion that nothing has any meaning. Epictetus responds that madmen are too “determined” to understand absurd things, and they need hellebore treatment. The idea is that the student must consider a different perspective or else be no different than people taking absurd quests for truth. There is also the implication that philosophers went around inspired on drugs and spouting nonsensical ideas. In the next set of references, philosophers are thought to use the hellebore treatment to induce intellectual inspiration.

64

Chapter 3

Petronius Petronius’s (first century CE) Satyricon (section 88) contains a reference to hellebore as a drug used for intellectual inspiration. In this scene, Encolpius views pieces of art in a gallery and speaks with an old poet named Eumpolus. The conversation turns to fine art in their day and how the skill is lagging and the motive is profit. Encolpius reflects on the time of the ancient Greeks and how the search for innovative discovery was honorable. He cites the philosopher Democritus for learning to extract the juice of intoxicating plants, Eudoxos for learning astronomy, and how the philosopher Chrysippus took hellebore three times to improve his mental awareness. The hellebore reference to Chrysippus appears in other Roman passages. In Petronius, the drug is presented as one used for recreation and to help intellectual contemplation. Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (second century CE) was an orator and rhetorician of the Roman Empire. The author was always on the hunt for medical treatments because he suffered from ongoing medical conditions. He read Pliny on hellebore and wrotes his opinion on it. He reacts to the idea that the Academic philosopher, Carneades, purged himself with hellebore before writing philosophical tracts against Zeno the Stoic. Gellius had read the anecdote about Carneades and did some research on hellebore. The point of the drug is to rid the body of noxious humors, which cause illness. Gellius is concerned that the hellebore treatment would leave him weak and near death. He writes that Livius Drusus (second to first century BCE, Tribune of the Plebs) went to Anticyra and was cured by hellebore. He says that the Gauls use hellebore on their arrows when hunting game and that it makes the flesh tender. Lucian There are references to psychotropic drugs in the works of Lucian (second century CE), including hellebore. Lucian’s True Stories consist of an imaginative tale about a group of travelers who take a wild journey to places like the moon, the sun, the belly of a whale, and the Island of the Blessed. On the Island of the Blessed, the group hears about the judgment of the dead by Rhadamanthus. In section 2.8, the judge oversees the trial of the hero Ajax, son of Telamon, who in myth went insane and killed himself. The judge orders him to take the hellebore treatment under the care of Hippocrates. After recovering, Ajax may join the other heroes.

Hellebore

65

In another section of True Stories (2.18), we hear about the philosophers who have not made it to the island for various reasons, typically their philosophical mindset. The scene mentions the philosopher Chrysippus and his use of hellebore for inspiration: “With regard to Chrysippus, we heard tell that he is not permitted to set foot on the island until he submits himself to the hellebore treatment for the fourth time.”9 In Philosophies for Sale, Lucian envisions a slave market with philosophers on display for elite buyers. In this scene, a stoic philosopher sells himself as fit for duty because of his hellebore treatment. Stoic: I shall then devote myself to the chief natural goods, I mean wealth, health, and the like. But first I must go through many preparatory toils, whetting my eyesight with closely-written books, collecting learned comments and stuffing myself with solecisms and uncouth words; and to cap all, a man may not become wise until he has taken the hellebore treatment three times running. Buyer: These projects of yours are noble and dreadfully courageous. But to be a Gnipho and a usurer—for I see that this is one of your traits too—what shall we say of this? That it is the mark of a man who has already taken his hellebore-treatment and is consummate in virtue?10

Lucian is a satirist and often pokes fun at philosophy. The stoic and the buyer are comically described.11 The stoic is proud to advertise himself as one fit for the task because he has used hellebore or would use it. The buyer is impressed and agrees that hellebore treatment has made him more virtuous. The author satirizes the drug because it was popular among philosophers and artists in his day. In Lucian’s Hermotimus (section 86), a pupil of the school of Stoicism, on his way to a lecture, is stopped by a stranger, named Lycinus, who is a philosopher of the Skeptic school. Lycinus questions Hermotimus’s motives in studying philosophy and living the life of a philosopher. The dialogue represents Lucian’s attack on schools of philosophy. At the end of the dialogue, Lycinus has proven Hermotimus’s intentions as being unworthy and inauthentic. Hermotimus decides to give up the philosophical life and become a layperson. In lament of the time wasted as a philosopher, Hermotimus says that he wants to purge the works and ideas, which he has ingested over the years. He wishes to drink hellebore, but, he says, for a different reason than the philosopher Chrysippus, who did it for inspiration. Hermotimus wants to undergo the treatment so that he can forget philosophy altogether. In Lucian’s “Dialogues of the Dead” (7), Menippus meets Tantalus, the mythological character punished in Hades by being unable to drink water for his thirst. After Tantalus explains his punishment to Menippus, Menippus

66

Chapter 3

says that he is need of hellebore since he appears crazy and afraid of thirst. Tantalus responds that he would drink hellebore, if only he had any. In Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead (13), Alexander the Great and the philosopher Diogenes meet. When Diogenes mentions Aristotle, Alexander rebukes him and calls Aristotle a sham. Diogenes replies that Alexander cannot cure his grief with hellebore, because it is not available in Hades, but he may drink from the river Lethe (forgetfulness) to cure his grief. Pliny the Elder Pliny the Elder provides an abundance of knowledge about hellebore.12 In a discussion (10.33) about wines made without fermented grapes, he lists wines made with different plant and tree extracts. He cites Cato the Elder (second to third century BCE), the farmer and senator of the Roman Republic, who wrote a book on farming. Cato left instructions on how to make hellebore wine using black hellebore. The plant is grown near the grape vines and, according to ancient rationale, the properties are transferred from the hellebore to the grapes. This rationale of transference appears in other writers, like Theophrastus and Dioscorides. Pliny (25.21.47) writes an extensive narration on hellebore including its different types, preparations, and applications. Melampian or Melampodium hellebore, he says, is named after the prophet Melampus, a figure from ancient Greek mythology. The plant was discovered by a shepherd, perhaps by the same name, who witnessed his she-goats being purged after eating hellebore, and, in the myth, the shepherd cures the daughters of Proteus of madness. White and black hellebore are the two main types, but Pliny explains that there is confusion around whether the two types refer to the same species of plant or different species of plant. Black hellebore kills horses, oxen, and swine, while animals will eat white hellebore. Pliny repeats items from Theophrastus about where it grows and about Mount Helicon with its variety of medical herbs. Melampodium hellebore is used for purifying houses, cattle, and farm animals. There are rituals for harvesting the plant, and an antidote of wine is taken before harvesting it. Pliny writes that one should dig it up as fast as possible. He mentions the superstition of the root cutters where the harvester will die within a year if spotted by an eagle after harvesting. In the following passage (25.21), Pliny brings up the recreational usage of hellebore among intellectuals and philosophers. Once regarded with horror it afterwards became so popular that most scholars took it regularly to sharpen their brains for their studies. It is well known that Carneades, when preparing to reply to the works of Zeno, , and that Drususa among us, most illustrious of our tribunes of the people, who was cheered by all the commons standing before him but charged by the aristocrats with causing the Marsic War, was on the island of Anticyra cured of epilepsy by means of this medicine. For there it is very safe to take the drug because they add to it sesamoides, as I have already sai.13

Theophrastus also mentions the seed called sesamoides, which is combined with hellebore in Anticyran preparations. The mention of Carneades represents an instance where a philosopher uses hellebore for inspiration to write philosophical treaties. Pliny (25.22) discusses the medical uses of hellebore. Black hellebore is used to treat paralysis, insanity, dropsy, gout, diseases of the joints, constipation, the eyes, open sores, tumors, fistula, and warts. Again, its main function is to purge down. Plutarch and Hellebore Plutarch’s (first to second century CE) Table Talk contains an ongoing discussion of symposium, wine drinking, and philosophy. In one section (question 8, 656C) of the dialogue, hellebore comes up, as well as its dosage. The section is titled, “Why those who are very drunk are less deranged than the so-called tipsy.” Within this section, there is a discussion about Aristotle’s lost work On Drinking and how there is a difference in a person’s mindset and ability to judge when sober, tipsy, and very drunk. According to the discussion (656F), Aristotle had separated the mindset into a spectrum. The sober mind has all facilities intact, the tipsy mind is about half able and half in fantasy, and the very drunk mind is completely in fantasy without good judgment. The discussion aims to highlight the tendency for tipsy people to act more outrageous than very drunk people. The supposition is that the tipsy person still has the strength to act on impulse but also uses poor judgment. The very drunk mind does not have the strength. And then one of the interlocutors mentions the effects of hellebore on the mind and its different doses. At any rate, hellebore has the characteristic of causing the body distress as it begins its purging action; if, then, less than the dose be given, the drug causes distress but does not purge. And some people become more excited when they take a subnormal dose of sedatives, but sleep when they take more. It is also likely, I suppose, that this disorder which characterizes the tipsy, when it attains its height, dies down and further that the wine works as a whole toward this end, for the large quantity which has come into the body joins in burning out and consuming the mind’s frenzy.14

68

Chapter 3

It is admitted here that small doses of hellebore cause intoxication but do not purge. People would take small doses to experience the psychotropic effects for recreation or intellectual stimulation. In the next chapter of Table Talk, the dialogue turns to the right proportion of wine and water to ensure that the guests at the party are not too intoxicated but still enjoying themselves. Both passages support the idea of moderate and safe use of intoxicants while discouraging the idea of too much intoxication and poor judgment. The ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to have a firm understanding of using intoxicants on a regular basis. Leisure and enjoyment are the motives for undergoing intoxicating experiences.15 Anticyra the Courtesan In Athenaeus, there is an abundance of opinions and attitudes toward intoxication and leisure. The following passage (book 13 586f–587a) shows the notoriety which came to one who associated with and procured intoxicants. In a discussion about the ancient Greek orator Lysias and women appearing in his orations, a woman nicknamed Anticrya is mentioned. The author of the speech Against Neaera mentions her as well. In his Against Philonides for Battery (fr. 299)—if the speech is genuine—Lysias also refers to the courtesan Naïs, while in his Response to Medon on a Charge of Offering False Witness (fr. 220) he mentions Anticyra. The latter is a courtesan’s nickname; because her given name was Oia, according to Aristophanes in his On Courtesans (Ar. Byz. fr. 365), in which he claims that she was known as Anticyra either because she used to drink with madmen and lunatics, or because after the physician Nicostratus took up with her, he died and left her a large supply of hellebore, but nothing else.16

Almost nothing is known about the specific people mentioned. Lysias is an ancient Greek orator from the fifth to sixth century BCE, who was still well studied in Athenaeus’s time. The various fragment abbreviations refer to fragments collections because we do not have any of the works mentioned intact. The passage implies that the courtesan named Anticyra inherited a large quantity of hellebore from her client and lover, a doctor. Courtesans were independent women, but did not have citizenship and they typically made money in different ways to survive. It is possible that she sold hellebore and received the nickname. She may have sold it for recreational usage or for nefarious ends (poisoning). Aristophanes of Byzantium is cited because the Hellenistic author wrote a book of famous courtesans, which included Anticyra.

Hellebore

69

ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN MEDICINE The greatest number of appearances of hellebore may be found in the surviving medical and pharmaceutical handbooks from the Roman Empire. All medical texts, animal husbandry texts, and agricultural manuals mention the plant and its usefulness. The texts often mention hellebore without distinction between white and black, although some texts go into detail to explain the differences. Hippocrates The surviving medical texts from Hippocrates often mention hellebore. The collection represents medical knowledge between the sixth century BCE up to the second century CE. Like many medical handbooks, it is assumed that different people wrote parts over the years, although there are also core texts. In a text attributed to Hippocrates of Cos, Regimen in Acute Diseases (appendix section 40), the author discusses symptoms which may be treated with hellebore. If the symptoms are a result of drinking (alcohol), love magic, grief, anxiety, or insomnia, then the passage recommends a more specific regimen with hellebore. In another text, entitled Diseases II (73–74), hellebore may be mixed with water and thus weakened so that the patient does not experience the downward purge, but only the mind-altering effect. Dioscorides Dioscorides’s pharmaceutical handbook contains about forty-six mentions of hellebore, often used as a comparison plant in looks or effects. It implies that a druggist had to be very familiar with the plant to understand the handbook. In section 2.70, in an entry on milk, Dioscorides relates a story about sheep, who eat white hellebore and then throw it up. The author explains that their milk afterward causes white hellebore effects in the person who drinks it. Section 4.148 contains the white hellebore entry. It is often used with black hellebore, but does not have the same medicinal effects. It is used to purge up. It does not have special harvesting instructions, except for the season. This implies that white hellebore was not psychoactive, but only purged. In section 4.149, Dioscorides writes that the Anticyran hellebore is really a plant called sesamoedes, which is identified in the text as bastard rocket. The author says that the Anticyrans calls sesamoeides hellebore because it is mixed with white hellebore for their treatments. Theophrastus first mentioned this plant in his discussion of hellebore and Anticrya.

70

Chapter 3

Section 4.162 contains the main entry on black hellebore, which Dioscorides says is the sesamoedes grown in Anticrya. The entry includes a lengthy list of treatments, including insanity. We hear about the rationale that hellebore planted near grapevines causes a change in grapes and effects of the wine to be more like hellebore. The author discusses the precautions in harvesting black hellebore and how touching the plant will cause mind-altering effects in the harvester. Dioscorides discusses the magical rituals associated with harvesting the plant. One should avoid the eye of an eagle directly after harvest or else death may result within a year. Theophrastus had dismissed these rituals as unnecessary. The author includes the advice that, before harvesting hellebore, one must prepare by eating garlic and consuming wine. In section 4.67, an abortifacient wine is described, made by growing grapevines near hellebore plants. Which kind of hellebore is not mentioned. In 5.72, there is recipe for wine infused with hellebore. This one is not where the plant is near the grapevines, but where one actually extracts the hellebore into the wine, making it psychoactive. Galen In his Thrasybulus (846K), Galen discusses the different kinds of medical specialties and doctors. Each one had its own approach to medicine and some types were preferred over others, although not all were equally effective. Galen writes, They are then called ophthalmic, or otological, or dental doctors, while others are named from the material they use—dieticians, pharmacists or, by the gods, herbalists. And there are some who were called wine-giving and hellebore-giving doctors because they were seen to use such materials often.17

Hellebore, according to Galen, was a type of specialty treatment, which one may seek out. The image implies availability of hellebore from special practitioners. Other places of availability would be the drug dealers in the markets. Celsus In Celsus (3.20 de medicina), the doctor prescribes hellebore to treat mental illness. If phantoms mislead, we must note in the first place whether the patients are depressed or hilarious. For depression black hellebore should be given as a purge, for hilarity white hellebore as an emetic; and if the patient will not take

Hellebore

71

the hellebore in a draught, it should be put into his bread to deceive him the more easily; for if he has well purged himself, he will in great measure relieve himself of his malady. Therefore even if one dose of the hellebore has little effect, after an interval another should be given. It should be known that a madman’s illness is less serious when accompanied by laughter than by gravity. This also is an invariable precept in all disease, that when a patient is to be purged downwards, his belly is to be loosened beforehand, but confined when he is to be purged upwards.18

The drug seemed long and widely used because of its effectiveness. When medicine is not as advanced as today’s mindset, then quick fixes often have acceptable results. The consumed plant forced the patient to purge up or down, and this often removed the issue affecting the patient or forced the body to recover and beat whatever was harming the body. The treatment for mental symptoms likely had effectiveness, too. Altered states of mind can change neuropathway directions and thus sometimes heal triggered neuropathways. In lay terms, one may sober up with a new perspective and feel better about whatever was bothering them. NOTES 1. In the modern-day world, a person may still say to another, using colloquial or slang phrases, “are you high?” or “what you been smoking?”. These slang phrases are used much in the same way as the hellebore reference. They imply the person has said something crazy and perhaps has been using cannabis or is acting high. We also hear the phrase, “you trippin?”, which implies the person is freaking out on some hallucinogenic drug. 2. According to the entry for Anticyra in the Lewis and Short Latin Lexicon, there were three locations by the name, and the ancient writers often mistook the most famous one as an island, when it was actually a peninsula, on the bay of the Corinthian Gulf. 3. See Pliny 27.144.119 for a similar discussion about drug tolerance. 4. See Mayor 2014 for a discussion of biological warfare in the ancient Greek and Roman world. 5. Trans. Henderson 1998, 408–9. 6. Trans. Olsen 2009, vol. 5, 274–75. 7. Trans. Lamb 1924, 476–77. 8. Trans. Wheeler 1924, 434–35. 9. Trans. Harmon 1913, vol. 1, 320–21. 10. Trans. Harmon 1915, vol. 2, 494–97. 11. See Lucian’s An Apology for Salaried Posts in Great Houses for another parody of elite ownership of philosophers. 12. See Hillman 2008, 46–47 for Pliny and hellebore.

72

Chapter 3

13. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 170–73. 14. Trans. Clement and Hoffleit 1969, vol. 8, 264–65. 15. There are other references in Plutarch, including Life of Alexander, Life of Demetrius, and De cohibenda ira. 16. Trans. Olsen 2010, vol. 6, 388–91. 17. Trans. Johnston 2018, vol. 2, 292–93. 18. Trans. Spencer 1935, vol. 1, 300–1.

Chapter 4

Mandrake

Mandrake in modern-day botany is Mandragora officinarum and is placed in the genus Mandragora within the family Solanaceae or nightshade. The group of plants in this family are known for their psychotropic tropane alkaloids (atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine) and have been used by different cultures throughout history.1 The ancient Greek and Roman world used these plants and had their own system of classification for them. There are other psychotropic plants in the nightshade family which the ancient world used. Thorn apple (see below strychnos and halicacabos), Datura stramonium, is in the nightshade family and within the genus Datura. Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade) is in the nightshade family and within the genus Atropa. These plants have similar psychotropic effects on people, but they are not the same plants. For the Greeks and Romans, mandrake had a reputation for its potent psychoactive effects. It was used in medicine, in wine and recreation, in magic and leisure, and as a poison. Just as with hellebore, mandrake was used to treat mental symptoms. Mandrake was a standard ingredient in love magic and divination. It was potent enough to kill people, and lawsuits concerning murder by poison abound in ancient writings. Mandrake will be considered first, then thorn apple and nightshade. In the next chapter, henbane, another plant from the nightshade family, will be discussed. THEOPHRASTUS AND MANDRAKE Theophrastus (On the Cause of Plants 6.4.5) covers mandrake in his writings on botany. He first describes it in a passage about plants that are sweet but not nutritious. In fact it is not even true that all sweet savors are nutritious for us. Some instead cause derangement (ecstatikoi), like the root resembling golden thistle and some 73

74

Chapter 4

other roots, some are soporific (hypnotikoi) and when taken in large quantities even fatal, like mandragora (mandrake), and a few are admittedly deadly, for many persons in many different places have eaten unfamiliar roots that were sweet and pleasant eating and died of it.2

These plants are not meant to be eaten for food, although they were used for intoxication. Some cause madness (ecstatikoi) and others sleep or trance (hypnotikoi). Derangement is not the best translation here and holds a pejorative meaning, which is not in the Greek. Mandrake was deadly, and people overdosed by accident or by inexperience. The sweetness of the plant does not guarantee its safety. Ingestion was not always accidental, but sometimes intentional. Theophrastus (History of Plants 9.8) describes the technique for harvesting mandrake, which was passed down by the magical tradition of root cutting. He is skeptical about the necessity of these practices, but still shares them. Thus it is said that one should draw three circles round mandrake with a sword, and cut it with one’s face towards the west; and at the cutting of the second piece one should dance round the plant and say as many things as possible about the mysteries of love. (This seems to be like the direction given about cumin, that one should utter curses at the time of sowing.) . . . These notions then seem to be irrelevant, as has been said. There are however no methods of root-cutting besides those which we have mentioned.3

The part about enchanting mysteries of love indicates the long tradition of mandrake used in love magic. Other ancient writers would share the same superstitious methods for harvesting the plant. In the next section (History of Plants 9.9), Theophrastus gives the commonly known uses of mandrake. As was said, of some plants the root, fruit and juice are all serviceable, as of all-heal among others; of some the root and the juice, as of scammony, cyclamen, thapsia, and others, such as mandrake; for the leaf of this, they say, used with meal, is useful for wounds, and the root for erysipelas, when scraped and steeped in vinegar, and also for gout, for sleeplessness, and for love potions (philtra). It is administered in wine or vinegar; they cut little balls of it, as of radishes, and making a string of them hang them up in the smoke over must.4

Erysipelas is a bacterial infection on the skin. The plant was used for several different medical treatments. Its use as a love potion indicates a recreational setting. The soporific nature of the plant was meant to produce a more loving atmosphere or a less angry one.

Mandrake

75

PLINY AND MANDRAKE Pliny (25.94.147–50), relying on Theophrastus, describes how to harvest mandrake. He includes details of its usage as a poison, as a mind-altering substance, as a sleep aid, and as a painkiller for surgery. The diggers avoid facing the wind, first trace round the plant three circles with a sword, and then do their digging while facing the west. The juice can also be obtained from the fruit, from the stem, after cutting off the top, and from the root, which is opened by pricks or boiled down to a decoction. Even the shoot of its root can be used, and the root is also cut into round slices and kept in wine. The juice is not found everywhere, but where it can be found it is looked for about vintage time. It has a strong smell, but stronger when the juice comes from the root or fruit of the white mandrake. The ripe fruit is dried in the shade.5

Pliny acknowledges the magical practices and superstitions around harvesting mandrake. The potent smell of the plant indicates its ability to cause intoxication. The entire plant is harvested, and its parts are extracted in different ways. The roots are preserved in wine, and the fruit is dried in the shade. Pliny continues with more details about curing the juice and fruit. The fruit juice is thickened in the sun, and so is that of the root, which is crushed or boiled down to one third in dark wine. The leaves are kept in brine, more effectively those of the white kind. The juice of leaves that have been touched by dew are deadly. Even when kept in brine they retain harmful properties.6

Mandrake is so potent that all parts of the harvest are psychotropic and harmful. For someone preparing the drug, there were dangers in touching the raw juices and concentrated juices. The cured and concentrated juice contains a deadly potency. The extraction will be diluted when it is ultimately used. Pliny covers the effects and applications of mandrake juice. The mere smell brings heaviness of the head and—although in certain countries the fruit is eaten—those who in ignorance smell too much are struck dumb, while too copious a draught even brings death. When the mandrake is used as a sleeping draught the quantity administered should be proportioned to the strength of the patient a moderate dose being one cyathus. It is also taken in drink for snake bite, and before surgical operations and punctures to produce anesthesia. For this purpose some find it enough to put themselves to sleep by the smell. A dose of two oboli of mandrake is also taken in honey wine instead of hellebore—but hellebore is more efficacious—as an emetic and to purge away black bile.7

76

Chapter 4

The plant is so powerful that inhaling the vapors of the juice may cause psychotropic effects. Eating it in small quantities still makes one undergo its effects. To induce sleep, the drug must be dosed in proportion to the weight and size of the patient. It may be used as an anesthetic for surgery, which meant any procedure where the patient needed to be knocked out. Mandrake may be used as a substitute for hellebore. In Book 24.111, Pliny mentions artificial wines made with mandrake. He mentions other wines, including ones made with wormwood, hellebore, and myrrh. ARISTOTLE Aristotle, in a discussion (On Sleep and Waking 456b) about how digestion of food makes one sleepy, mentions the intoxicating effects of several narcotic drugs, including mandrake. The discussion is not about these drugs themselves, but about conditions, like food and disease, which make people sleepy. Narcotics (hypnotika) prove this; for they all, both liquid and solid (e.g., poppy, mandragora, wine and darnel), cause head-heaviness. When men are heavy and nod, they seem to suffer this affection, and cannot raise their heads or eyelids.8

Head-heaviness is a sign of intoxication. Aristotle imagines liquid and solid ingestion of narcotics and gives no context, whether medical or recreational. The author describes men who are stupefied on these drugs and fall asleep. Since he uses these narcotics as examples, we might suppose his audience saw the usage of these drugs in their everyday world. Poppy and darnel will be covered in the next chapter. PLATO In Plato’s Republic, a mandrake reference is made to represent madness and unbridled intoxication. In the dialogue, Adeimantus says to Socrates (6, 487b): “How is it right then to say that states will not be rid of evil until philosophers, whom we agree are of no use to them, rule in them?”9 He reacts to the idea of philosophers ruling their imagined state. Socrates answers Adeimantus with an image or allegory (6, 488bd), which shows how the system will fail without philosophy. Imagine, then, the following happening whether you are talking about many ships or just one. You have a ship’s master who is bigger and stronger than all

Mandrake

77

the crew, but he’s a bit deaf and somewhat shortsighted, and his knowledge of seamanship is of a similar order. The crew are at loggerheads with each other over the way to navigate the ship: each thinks he should be captain although he has never been taught the skill, nor can he say who taught him, nor even when he learned. Not only this but they claim it can’t be taught and are ready to cut anyone to pieces who says that it can. They constantly crowd around the ship’s master himself, begging him and doing everything they can to get him to entrust the steering oar to them. But if they sometimes fail to persuade him while others succeed, these others they either kill or throw off the ship, and, befuddling the worthy master with mandrake, or alcohol, or something else, they take control of the ship and as they sail use up everything on board and drink and gorge themselves as you’d expect men like this to do. As well as this they sing the praises of anyone who is clever enough to rally them to persuade or compel the master to let them rule, calling him a seaman, helmsman, someone who understands ships, while they disparage the man who can’t as useless.10

Mandrake in heavy dosage could cause the one using it to fall deep asleep. In the passage, mandrake is used to make the captain of the ship go to sleep so that the lesser sailors can take over the helm. The crew tricks the captain by mixing mandrake in the wine. The image of the lesser sailors taking over control of the ship devolves into madness. The sailors drink all the wine on the ship. They are overindulgent and overconfident. Unbridled intoxication is the theme of the passage. Philosophy is supposed to act as a buffer to madness. Plato envisions the sailors as having access to mandrake and wine on the ship. The idea of the underclass having access to processed drugs may be applied here. Port towns frequented by sailors were known to have intoxicating drugs. The lower classes made up the culture of these centers where leisure was offered to travelers. XENOPHON In Xenophon (Symposium, Sections 24–27), Socrates encourages the group to drink and become intoxicated, but, at the same time, advises moderation. Just as the passages from Plato and Aristotle, mandrake is related to wine. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “as far as drinking is concerned, you have my full approval; for wine does in fact ‘moisten the soul’ and lull our pains to sleep just as mandragora (mandrake) lulls people, at the same time awakening kindly feelings just as oil does a flame. I suspect, however, that men’s bodies fare the same as plants that grow in the ground: when the god gives the plants water in floods to drink, they can’t stand up straight or let the breezes blow through them, but when they drink only as much as they enjoy, they grow up very straight

78

Chapter 4

and come to full and abundant fruitage. So it is with us. If we pour ourselves immense drafts, it won’t be long before both our bodies and our minds start reeling, and we won’t be able even to draw breath, much less to speak sensibly; but if the slaves frequently ‘besprinkle’ us—if I too may use a Gorgian expression— with small cups, we will reach the merrier state not by the wine’s compulsion to drunkenness but instead by its gentle persuasion.”11

The intoxicating effects of wine are compared to mandrake. It is thought to be a painkiller for the soul. When the substances are overused, just like overwatered plants, the users fall over and cannot stand. Overuse of the drugs includes difficulty breathing and speaking straight. If the party drinks in moderation, then the participants will enjoy the intoxication without losing their sensibility. Psychotropic drugs were a part of the drinking party and were put in the wine. The party would have a better atmosphere, if things were kept in moderation. Intoxication and recreation are the motives behind using the substances. ALEXIS (MIDDLE COMEDY) Mandrake appears in the title of a lost comedy from Alexis. The comedy was called Woman Who Ate Mandrake and its specific plot is unknown. A few fragments survive, but none of them shed light on the events of the comedy. Middle Comedy featured domestic settings, including drinking parties. One might imagine a comedy where women consume mandrake and entertain friends in a party setting. The audience, who watch the comedy performed, would understand recreational drug usage. Another lost comedy from Alexis was titled the Drug Dealer (Pharmakopoles). COLUMELLA In the Roman world, mandrake was equally used and discussed. This instance appears in a book on agriculture. In a passage (De re rustica 10.6–22) on farming a small garden, Columella (first century CE) warns about keeping certain plants out of the space, while allowing others. First for the varied garden let rich soil a place provide, which shows a crumbling glebe and loosened clods, and, dug, is like thin sand. Fit is the nature of the soil which grass abundant grows and moistened brings to birth elder’s red berries. Never joys afford dry soil and stagnant marsh which aye endures The frog’s complaint and curses; choose the ground which of itself the leafy elm-tree rears, joys in wild vines and bristles thick with groves of the wild pear, strewn with the

Mandrake

79

stony fruit of plums and apple-trees’ unbidden wealth, that bears no hellebore with noxious juice, Nor suffers yews to grow, nor poisons strong exudes, though it may bear the maddening flower of the half-human mandrake, hemlock drear and fennel cruel to the hands and bramble-bush to legs unkind and prickles sharp of thorn.12

Hellebore is not allowed in the garden, while mandrake is allowed. The author gives the epithet “maddening” to the plant and mentions its commonly known nickname “half-human,” referring to its roots looking like a human. Hemlock is also good for the garden. Ancient writings on farming recommend small herb gardens, filled with plants for seasoning food and for medical applications. Drugs bought at the open markets were often adulterated and not pure. APULEIUS In the Metamorphosis of Apuleius, mandrake plays a role in a story of murder and intrigue. In the Greek novel, the main character has been turned into a donkey, and the story consists of the donkey’s adventures. In Book 10, Lucius as a donkey has been left off at a property for safekeeping by a Roman soldier. He describes a story about murder and a love between a stepmother and her stepson. The stepmother, pretending to be sick, summons the stepson and tells him her reason for suffering. The stepson is offended by the proposition, but placates her request to keep the peace. He postpones the sexual encounter to a later date and meanwhile flees the household to avoid the whole ordeal. The stepmother sends her husband away and attempts to have a rendezvous with her stepson. The son once again delays the meeting. The stepmother ultimately employs her slave to procure a poison and kill the stepson. The slave buys the poison and the stepmother prepares a drink for the stepson. The stepmother had another son, and he accidently drinks the poison and seemingly dies. The stepmother decides to accuse the stepson of poisoning her real son. She claims that the stepson killed her real son because she refused her stepson’s sexual advances. The community decides to hold a criminal trial for the surviving son who was accused of the murder. In the trial, the slave makes up a story that confirms the stepmother’s version of events. In the jury there happens to be the doctor who sold the slave the poison. He gives a speech, which implicates the slave in buying the poison, but he also denies that the boy is dead. But I was afraid that if I refused to give it to him I would be abetting a crime by my ill-timed denial, and that he would either buy a destructive potion from

80

Chapter 4

someone else or accomplish his abominable enterprise in the end with a sword or some other weapon. And so I gave him a drug, but a soporific, mandragora, well known for its proven lethargic effect, which produces a coma very like death. It is no wonder if that criminal can easily endure your tortures as being comparatively mild, since he is utterly desperate and sure of receiving the maximum penalty due to him in accordance with tradition. However, if the boy really took the medicine which I mixed with my own hands, he is alive and resting and sleeping, and he will soon shake off his languid coma and return to the light of day.13

The doctor gave the slave a concoction of mandrake which would cause someone to sleep for multiple days and appear as if dead. The boy is found in his tomb still alive, and the saga continues. The story contains an example of evil sleep, where someone is drugged but not killed. The story attests to the idea that mandrake could make someone sleep so hard that they seem dead. Apuleius expects his audience to be familiar with the drug and its effects. ANCIENT MAGIC Mandrake is used in recipes to cause evil sleep and visions in ancient magic. There are examples in the collection Papyri Graecae Magicae (PGM) and the Papyri Demoticae Magicae (PDM). This collection covers magic used during the Roman Empire and the spells were found in the deserts of Egypt. In this recipe, opium poppy is used to achieve evil sleep or to evil sleep another. A tested prescription if you wish to “evil sleep” a man: scammony root, 1 dram, opium, 1 dram; pound with milk; make it into a ball, and put it in some food (?) / which is cooked so that he eats it. He is upset. (PDM xiv 711–15)14

Opium and other items are put in food and given to someone unknowingly. If evil sleep is used to harm another person, then it is meant to make them pass out for a long period of time. The recipe claims that the victim or one taking it will be upset at first. This reaction is likely due to their surprise at suddenly feeling intoxicated. This recipe promises similar outcomes, but with longer-lasting effects. Another, if you wish to make a man sleep for two days: mandrake root, 1 ounce; water and honey, 1 ounce; henbane, 1 ounce; ivy, 1 ounce. You should grind them with a lok-measure of wine. If you wish to do it cleverly, you should put four portions to each one of them with a glass of wine; you should moisten them

Mandrake

81

from morning to evening; you should clarify them; you should make them drink it. It is very good. (PDM xiv 716–24)15

This recipe would make one sleep for up to two days. Besides mandrake, it also contains henbane, another member of the nightshade family. The ingredients promise the desired outcome. Unlike the other spell for evil sleep, this one does not necessarily mention malicious intent. One should imagine different applications for evil sleep. Some nefarious, others recreational. In this recipe, a preparation for evil sleep is given: A prescription to cause a man to sleep; it is very good: apple seeds, 1 stater, 1 dram; mandrake root, 4 drams; ivy, 4 drams; pound together; add fifteen measures of wine to it; put it in a glass vessel and guard it! When you wish to give it, you should put it in a little in a cup of wine, and you should give it to the man.(PDM XIV 727–36)16

Again, mandrake is the main ingredient. It is taken in wine, as with the last recipe. A little is given so as not to cause death. One possible application here is love magic where the man is sedated to calm the mood. The recipe is dangerous, so the preparer must guard it, while it is not being used. In the following spell, nightshade and other psychotropic drugs are used to achieve different results. The spell requires that the user prepares several items before completing it. Myrrh ink must be made and different items then written down on papyrus and a leaf. While making the ink, the user is instructed to make a mixture with wormwood and anoint the mouth. For remembering the things said use this mixture: Take the plant wormwood, a sun-opal (?), breathing stone (?), heart of hoopoe and of the vulture cock. Having ground everything equally put in a sufficient amount of honey and anoint your lips after fumigating the mouth with a lump of frankincense. (PGM II 1–64)17

Wormwood is the psychotropic ingredient in absinth and would have an effect on the user. The spell asks the user to fumigate frankincense while making the ink and performing the spell. The frankincense is psychotropic and can be used through inhalation. “The ink for the spell is as follows.” In a purified container burn myrrh and cinquefoil and wormwood; grind them to a paste, and use them. Take a sprig of laurel and Ethiopian cumin and nightshade, and grind them together; take in a clay pot water from a new well, dug either 5 months previously or within the last 5 years, or any one you come across on the first day after its being dug, and throw the mixture into the water. Leave

82

Chapter 4

it for just 3 nights, and, as you are uttering the invocation put a little of it into your right ear. (PGM II 1–64)18

The ink contains deadly nightshade. To remember what is said, the user must wash off the ink and put the water in their ear. Deadly nightshade would cause the user to see visions and undergo a psychotropic experience. To have good memory, the user must use more of the ink and write items on a leaf, which he then puts in his mouth and goes to sleep. The spell has a lot of direct contact with and ingestion of psychotropic ingredients. It is not clear what exact purpose the spell was used. It is likely that the spell induced a visionary experience and the user needed to remember what information they received during the episode. After this spell, another one with similar uses is suggested. In this version, the user covers their body in a mixture of deadly nightshade. Then rub yourself all over with the following mixture: laurel bayberries, Ethiopian cumin, nightshade, and “Hermes Finger.” (PGM 2.64–183)19

These two spells amount to communing with a god and receiving visions. They are examples of recreational drug usage under the guise of magical practice. Thorn Apple and Deadly Nightshade In a section on the classification of plants, Theophrastus explains that plants that have different physical characteristics often have the same name. The plant might be designated based on its usage or physiological effects. In this section (History of Plants 7.15), he covers stryknos: Others are found in fewer forms, as strykhnos, which is a general name covering plants that are quite distinct; one is edible and like a cultivated plant, having a berry-like fruit, and there are two others, of which the one is said to induce sleep (hypnon), the other to cause madness (mania), or, if it is administered in a larger dose, death. The same thing may be observed in other plants which are widely different.20

Theophrastus imagines a class of plants which have similar effects on people. Two types of plants from the nightshade family are mentioned. There are plants with similar psychoactive properties, but they do not have the same physical characteristics. There are a variety of species which have these effects. Theophrastus (History of Plants 9.11) seems to place mandrake in a larger family of drugs. In a similar way, modern botany categorizes mandrake in the

Mandrake

83

Nightshade family. He defines two forms of the plant strychnos, which may be lined up to sleepy nightshade and thorn apple. As to strykhnos again and Tithymallos (spurge) there is in either case more than one form of the plant. Of the plants called strykhnos one induces sleep (hypnodes), the other (thorn apple) causes madness (manikos). The first-mentioned has a root which becomes red like blood as it dries, but when first dug up it is white; its fruit is a deeper orange than saffron, its leaf like that of tithymallos or the sweet apple; and it is itself rough, and about a foot high. The ‘bark ’ of the root of this they bruise severely, and soaking it in neat wine give it as a draught, and it induces sleep. It grows in water-courses and on tombs.21

One type causes sleep and the other, which would be thorn apple, causes madness. The first one is taken with wine and it is likely deadly nightshade. Theophrastus has more to say about the thorn apple and how it causes madness. The kind which produces madness (which some call thryoron and some petition) has a white hollow root about a cubit long. Of this three twentieths of an ounce in weight is given, if the patient is to become merely sportive and to think himself a fine fellow; twice this dose if he is to go mad (mainesthai) outright and have delusions (phantasias); thrice the dose, if he is to be permanently insane (mainomenon); (and then they say that the juice of centaury is mixed with it); four times the dose is given, if the man is to be killed.22

The intoxication, which Theophrastus describes, has four potencies. The user may feel intoxicated and drunk. If twice is given, the user experiences madness and delusions. If more is taken, then they suffer permanent insanity and ultimately death. It seems that people in Theorphrastus’s world used the drug to achieve the first two states of mind. The setting may be medical or recreational intoxication. Theophrastus (History of Plants 9.19) brings up strychnos again, in a discussion about drugs which affect the mind or are psychotropic. As to those which affect the mind (psyche), strykhnos, as was said before, is said to upset the mental powers and make one mad (existanai); while the root of onotheras (oleander) administered in wine makes the temper gentler and more cheerful.23

Theophrastus recognizes the two modes of mind alteration. One may experience madness or be out of their mind or one may be jolly and buzzed. Both types of intoxication were available. Madness was a normal mode of

84

Chapter 4

intoxication for Theophrastus’s audience. The passage recognizes three different types of intoxication: sleepiness, improved mood, and madness. Pliny the Elder on Deadly Nightshade Pliny (21.177–82) writes about drugs from the Nightshade family. Trychnos, spelt by some strychnos, I wish the Egyptian florists did not use for their chaplets; they are tempted to do so by the resemblance of the leaves of both kinds to those of ivy. One of these kinds, bearing in a seed-bag scarlet berries with a stone in them, is called halicacabos, by others callion, and by our countrymen bladder-wort, because of its usefulness in cases of stone and other complaints of the bladder. It is a woody shrub rather than a plant, with large, broad, conical seed-bags, with a large stone inside, which ripens in November. A third kind has the leaves of basil, and should receive the briefest of descriptions from one who is dealing with remedies, not poisons, for a very small amount of the juice causes madness.24

In his discussion of trychnos, Pliny voices concern that people would account for the third type, which causes madness. Pliny continues with the ancient Greeks’ fascination with the plant. Yet the Greek writers have actually made a jest of this property. For they have said that a dose of one drachma plays tricks with the sense of shame, speaking of hallucinations and realistic visions; that a double dose causes downright insanity; any addition moreover to the dose bringing instant death. This is the poison which in their innocence very unsophisticated writers have called dorycnion because spears before battle had their points dipped in it, as it grows everywhere. Those who censured it less severely gave it the name manicon; those who from evil motives tried to keep its nature secret called it erythron, or neuras, or (as a few did) perisson, but there is no need to go into more details even for the sake of giving a warning.25

Pliny repeats the passage from Theophrastus concerning the different dosages and potencies of the plant. The drug, beyond enhancing the mood, causes hallucinations and visions. He mentions the use of the processed plant in biological warfare. If the enemy suffered any of the effects, they would be unable to fight. The plant goes by different names, including secret ones. Some of its names, like manicon and neuras, advertise its psychotropic effects. Pliny does not want to write more about it, even as a warning for safety. He continues with another plant from the same family. There is besides another kind, with the name of halicacabos, which is soporific, and kills quicker even than opium, by some called morion and by others moly,

Mandrake

85

yet praised by Diocles and Evenor, by Timaristus indeed even in verse, with a strange forgetfulness of harmless remedies, actually because it is, they say, a quick remedy for strengthening loose teeth to rinse them in wine and halicacabos. They added a proviso, that the rinsing must not go on too long, for delirium is caused thereby. Remedies should not be described the use of which involves the danger of a yet more serious evil.26

Pliny is surprised that early experts praised plants that had the ability to kill the user. He relates this halicacabos to opium poppy and mentions that some call it moly, like the plant in Homer’s Odyssey. The plant is used to relieve a toothache, but the user may suffer madness as a side-effect of the treatment. Pliny discourages such dangerous remedies. Accordingly, although a third kind of this plant is in favor as a food, and although its flavor is preferred to that of other garden produce, and although Xenocrates prescribes trychnos as being beneficial for every bodily ill, yet the genus is not so helpful that I consider it right on this account to give any more details, especially when the supply is so abundant of harmless remedies.27

Pliny is surprised that some people eat this plant for food. One ancient doctor finds the plant beneficial as a panacea or cure-all. Pliny thinks that less harmful plants should be used instead. He mentions the role which the plant played in the tradition of magic. The root of halicacabos is taken in drink by those who, to confirm superstitious notions, wish to play the inspired prophet, and to be publicly seen raving in unpretended madness. The remedy for it, which I am happier to mention, is a copious draught of hot hydromel.28

People might use it who want to seem inspired by the gods. He imagines scammers who take money from people for telling fortunes. The part where they act inspired is caused by the drug. The users would act inspired publicly, after ingesting the plant. Hydromel or honey mead is thought to counteract the madness caused by the halicacabos root. The drugs used in magic often brought about the desired results for the customer of magic. As much as Pliny dislikes the use of psychoactive plants, his descriptions of people using them is informed by their commonality in everyday life. The practice of magic was a core belief in the ancient Greek and Roman mindset.

86

Chapter 4

PLUTARCH In Plutarch (Moralia / Table Talk 3.5, 652cd), there is a reference to deadly nightshade (belladonna) in a passage concerning the cooling properties of narcotic drugs. The larger context is the cold properties of wine. As discussed previously, ancient medicine considered narcotics and wine to make the body cold and thus cause psychotropic effects. Question 5: Whether wine is on the cold side in its power. Next, most people assert that sleep is produced by the action of coolness, and most of the hypnotic drugs, like belladonna and opium, are refrigerants; but the depressant and torporific action of these drugs is one of very great violence, while wine cools gently, pleasantly checking and stopping movement, the difference between it and the hypnotics being a matter of degree.29

In the discussion, wine is preferred as a slow method for becoming intoxicated versus other substances. Although wine is a kinder intoxicant, other narcotics, like deadly nightshade and opium, are available and commonly used. He considers wine to have the same properties as narcotics. MANDRAKE, NIGHTSHADE, AND THORN APPLE IN ANCIENT MEDICINE Hippocrates In this passage from the Hippocratic Corpus (Places in Man sec 39), mandrake is used to treat mental symptoms.30 To those who are troubled and ill and want to hang themselves give mandrake root to drink early in the morning, an amount less than would make them delirious (mainesthai). A convulsion must be treated as follows. Keep fires lighted on each side of the bed, and have the patient drink mandrake root to an amount less than would make him delirious; to the posterior tendons apply warm poultices.31

The drug is used to treat one suffering mental distress and suicidal thoughts. The passage recognizes that a higher dose would cause madness. The doctor was supposed to use less of the drug to calm down the patient. Putting someone who is mentally distraught to sleep was one approach to treatment.

Mandrake

87

Dioscorides Dioscorides has an entry on mandrake (4.75). He writes that it was also known as Circaia for its usage in love potions. The name relates to Homer’s Circe, where love magic plays an uncertain role. The fruit of the mandrake is pungent and oppressive, which indicates its potential for intoxication. Dioscorides writes that, “shepherds eat it and are reduced to a state of stupor.” Often, the rural and lower classes are portrayed as using psychotropic plants for leisure and enjoyment. Dioscorides describes the process of mandrake extraction and dosage. Juice is extracted from the skin of the root when fresh by chopping it and putting it under a press. After it has been condensed, it must be stored in a clay vessel. Juice is extracted also from the fruit in a similar fashion, but the juice from the fruit becomes weak. The skin is also peeled from the root, threaded with a linen thread, and hung for later use. But some boil down the roots with wine until reduced to one third, strain, and store, administering about one cyathos to insomniacs, to those in much pain, and to those undergoing surgery or cauterization whom they wish to anesthetize. A quantity of two obols of its juice drunk with hydromel brings up phlegm and bile as hellebore does; but when too much of it is drunk, it is lethal.32

Pressing the chopped root would concentrate its potency. Another process puts the root, reduced in boiling water, into wine, which also concentrates it. The dosage is given for the desired effects. The extraction causes sleep and kills pain. It is potent enough to act as an anesthetic, which means one may undergo surgical cuttings without feeling. The plant caused a prolonged deep sleep. This effect allowed the plant to be used in deceit and trickery. The person administering the plant must be careful with the dosage because too much caused death. Dioscorides gives more details about the anesthetic effects of mandrake extraction. From the skin of the root they also make, without boiling, a wine: one must cast three mnai of root skin into one metretes of sweet wine and give three cyathoi of it to those about to undergo surgery or cautery, as indicated above. For they become unaware of the pain because they sink into deep sleep.33

The fruit, although less potent, causes sleep when it is eaten or inhaled. Higher doses cause heavy intoxication and a loss of abilities. Dioscorides writes, “Its fruit is soporific when eaten as well as when smelled, as is also its juice, but consumed in excesses, it even makes people unable to speak.”34 Thus it is stupefying to the user.

88

Chapter 4

Dioscorides, in the same passage, section 7, describes another plant in the same family, which has similar effects and uses, Some note that there is yet another morion that grows in shady places and around caves, having leaves like those of white mandrake, but smaller, about a span long, white, growing in a circle around the root, which is soft and white, slightly longer than a span, and thick as a thumb; they say that it stupefies when as much as one drachma is drunk or when eaten in a lump of barley or in prepared food; for the person falls asleep in whatever posture he was when he ate it, feeling nothing for three or four hours from the time it was offered to him. Physicians about to perform surgery or cautery use this one, too. They say that the root is also an antidote when drunk with thorn apple.35

The idea of evil sleep seems relevant in this passage. The preparation was typically eaten, and the effects of the drug were drastic on the user. Dioscorides writes about mandrake wine (mandragorites, 5.71). Wine flavored with mandrake: cut into pieces the skin of its root, thread half a mna with a linen thread, and place it into one metretes of must for three months, then decant. The average potion is one half cotyle; however, twice this quantity is drunk when grape syrup is added. They say that it is soporific and that it plunges an entire dinner party into deep sleep if one cotyle of it was mixed with one chous of wine; one cyathos dunk with one xestes of wine is lethal. Its moderate use, however, allays pain and thickens discharges. Both when smelled and when used as a clyster it does the same.36

The idea that it causes an entire dinner party to sleep is an odd description of the wine’s potency. One can speculate that mandrake was commonly added to wine at drinking parties. The potency of the plant is so great that it causes intoxication simply through inhalation. This way of use may have been an alternative to drinking it. Dioscorides’s examples and applications are not purely medical and include recreational usages. Dioscorides discusses sleepy nightshade (strychnon hypnikon) in another section (4.72). One of its common names is halicaccabon. An amount of one drachma of its root’s peel drunk in wine has a soporific property that is milder than that of the juice of opium poppy, and its fruit is very diuretic. About twelve clusters are given to those with edemata, but if they should drink more, they cause them severe mental distress. Drinking large quantities of hydromel helps them. Its peel is mixed also with analgesics and lozenges and it helps for toothaches when boiled down in wine and held in the mouth. The juice of the root, anointed with honey, allays dim-sightedness.37

Mandrake

89

The effects of the plant are similar to opium poppy, making it a heavy intoxicant. The plant is used for edemata or dropsy, but it also causes mental distress, if too much is taken. Dioscorides recommends the plant to be mixed into an analgesic or surgical drug. It seems that different nightshade plants could make a powerful concoction. Surgery was not very common in ancient medicine except for amputations and bloodletting. Drugs which cause deep sleep were used in different medical settings. Dioscorides covers thorn apple (datura stramonium) in another section (4.73). Here, the plant is used in recreational settings. The root has a property that causes not unpleasant fantasies when a quantity of one drachma is drunk with wine, but when a quantity of two drachmai is drunk, it drives a person out of his senses for up to three days; and if a quantity of four drachmai is drunk, it kills; drinking and vomiting large quantities of hydromel is its antidote.38

The drug causes hallucinations which Dioscorides describes as pleasant. It is easy to assume that people may have used this plant for recreational intoxication. As with other nightshade plants, a larger quantity causes long-lasting side effects, here prolonged mania. Celsus In Celsus (On Medicine 3.18), psychotropic drugs are used to treat mental symptoms. I shall begin with insanity, and first that form of it which is both acute and found in fever. The Greeks call it phrenesis. Before all things it should be recognized, that at times, during the paroxysm of a fever, patients are delirious and talk nonsense. This is indeed no light matter, and it cannot occur unless in the case of a severe fever; it is not, however, always equally dangerous; for commonly it is of short duration, and when the onslaught of the paroxysm is relieved, at once the mind comes back. This form of the malady does not require any other remedy than that prescribed for the curing of the fever. But insanity is really there when a continuous dementia begins, when the patient, although up till then in his senses, yet entertains certain vain imaginings; the insanity becomes established when the mind becomes at the mercy of such imaginings. But there are several sorts of insanity; for some among insane persons are sad, others hilarious; some are more readily controlled and rave in words only, others are rebellious and act with violence; and of these latter, some only do harm by impulse, others are artful too, and show the most complete appearance of sanity whilst seizing occasion for mischief, but they are detected by the result of their acts.39

90

Chapter 4

Celsus recognizes symptoms of insanity which occur without fever. The patient begins to act irrationally and becomes entangled with his own fantastical imagination. Each patient, suffering insanity, presents different symptoms. It is interesting that some patients pretend to be normal, while suffering insanity. There is a large spectrum of behaviors. Celsus suggests different treatments for insanity, including putting the patient in a dark place, in a lighted place, under constraints, flogging the patient, distracting him by being asked to read literature, or stimulated by music. Celsus recommends that the doctor slowly bring the patient back to rationality. He writes, “More often, however, the patient is to be agreed with rather than opposed, and his mind slowly and imperceptibly is to be turned from the irrational talk to something better.”40 In the same passage, Celsus recommends putting the patient to sleep as one type of treatment. But certainly for all so affected sleep is both difficult and especially necessary; for under it many get well. Beneficial for this, as also for composing the mind itself, is saffron ointment with orris applied to the head. If in spite of this patients are wakeful, some endeavor to induce sleep by draughts of decoction of poppy or Hyoscyamus (henbane); others put mandrake apples under the pillow; others smear the forehead with cardamomum balsam or sycamine tears. . . . Many foment the face and head at intervals with a sponge dipped in a decoction of poppy heads. Asclepiades said that these things were of no benefit, because they often produced a change into lethargy. . . . But if sleep does not thus occur, then at length it is to be procured by the above medicaments, having regard, of course, to the same moderation, which is necessary here also, for fear we may afterwards not be able to wake up the patient whom we wish to put to sleep.41

Celsus explains that sleep is often needed for a patient suffering insanity and it sometimes cures them. Opium poppy, henbane, and mandrake apples are recommended for causing the patient to sleep. The treatment did not always bring about the desired results. Sometimes the patient was made lethargic and still suffered symptoms of insanity. If too much of these sleep aids were used, the doctor might lose the patient. The psychoactive substances would cause more than simply sleep. They can cause psychedelic experiences in the user, including visions. Accordingly, these psychotropic drugs were used in ancient medicine to treat mental illness. We may assume further that people self-medicated with the drugs without a doctor’s supervision under more recreational circumstances. The goal would be to feel better, to be less stressed, and to undergo a change in mindset. In another section (5.25), Celsus addresses sleeping pills and how to make them. He warns that there must be a good reason to use them because they harm the stomach. In one recipe, poppy tears seems to be the sleep-causing

Mandrake

91

ingredient. Another drug has mandrake and henbane. Each one uses multiple ingredients. Celsus discusses the procedure of putting a person to sleep for the sake of easing pain. More multi-ingredient drugs are given, one using rue, poppy tears, and mandrake apples. He also explains how to make sleeping pills from the heads of wild poppies. The heads are boiled down and mixed with wine. Aretaeus Aretaeus (second century CE) considers the madness caused by recreational usage of mandrake and henbane. In this passage (“On Madness”), he discusses the different types of mania and madness, including treatments. The modes of mania are infinite in species, but one alone in genus. For it is altogether a chronic derangement of the mind, without fever. For if fever at any time should come on, it would not owe its peculiarity to the mania, but to some other incident. Thus wine inflames to delirium in drunkenness; and certain edibles, such as mandragora and henbane (hyoscyamus), induce madness: but these affections are never called mania; for, springing from a temporary cause, they quickly subside, but madness has something confirmed in it. . . . And they with whose madness joy is associated, laugh, play, dance night and day, and sometimes go openly to the market crowned, as if victors in some contest of skill; this form is inoffensive to those around. Others have madness attended with anger; and these sometimes rend their clothes and kill their keepers, and lay violent hands upon themselves. This miserable form of disease is not unattended with danger to those around. But the modes are infinite in those who are ingenious and docile,—untaught astronomy, spontaneous philosophy, poetry truly from the muses; for docility has its good advantages even in diseases.42

Aretaeus considers madness from wine as different from madness caused by drugs. Mandrake and henbane cause symptoms like madness but are not considered madness because the altered state of mind is temporary. He considers wine to be in the same category of items that cause temporary madness. Wine is a drink, while mandrake and henbane are considered edibles. The context of usage of these items is unclear, but one might assume that people came to the doctor with these symptoms present. Aretaeus continues his examination by describing the different types of ways people act when suffering madness. Galen According to Galen (Method of Medicine Book 12, 816K), doctors overprescribed psychotropic medications. Some doctors were not

92

Chapter 4

knowledgeable enough to use psychotropic drugs on their patients without killing them. He says that the risk must be weighed against the benefits. Therefore, in those who are ill, the safety of the cure is the determining factor for someone struggling courageously against the disease in accord with the rationale of the craft, just as the preservation of the capacity is for the person soothing the pains. It is the action of an incompetent to exceed these limits and to take away the patient’s life along with the disease while it is the action of a flatterer to gratify the sick person, establishing pleasure rather than health as the goal of what he does. Doctors fall into such excesses in many and various materials of remedies, but especially in the so-called anodyne medications which they compound from poppy juice, seed of henbane, root of mandrake, storax, or some such thing. Those who indulge the sick go to excess in the use of such medications, and those inappropriately and immoderately courageous fellows who don’t use them at all, destroy their patients through the pains.43

Galen claims that doctors kill their patients by overdosing them on mind-altering drugs. In some cases, the doctor is incompetent, while, in others, the doctor overindulges the patients’ desire for these drugs. His analysis may indicate that people came to the doctors looking for potent mind-altering drugs. Galen lists the plants which are overprescribed, and the list includes poppy juice, henbane, mandrake, and storax. Galen is suspicious that amateur doctors add intoxicating ingredients to their drugs so that their treatment seems legitimate. NOTES 1. See Dafni et al. 2021, Waniakowa 2007, Samorini 2022, Carod-Artal 2013, Merlin 2003, Hillman 2008, Rinella 2011, and Scarborough 1991 for mandrake and other related plants. See Faraone 2001, 124–30 for mandrake and love magic. 2. Trans. Einarson and Link 1990, 210–13. 3. Trans. Ibid., 258–61. 4. Trans Hort 1916, vol. 2, 260–61. 5. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 240–43. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Trans. Hett 1957, 336–37. 9. Trans. Emlyn-Jones 2013, vol. 2, 16–17. 10. Trans. ibid., 18–21. 11. Trans. Marchant and Todd 2013, 582–86. 12. Trans. Forster and Heffner 1955, vol. 3, 6–7. 13. Trans. Hansen 1989, vol. 2, 192–95. 14. Trans Johnson 1992, 233.

Mandrake

93

15. Ibid., 234. 16. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 13. 18. Ibid. Trans Dillon, 13. 19. Trans. Dillon, 72–73. 20. Trans. Hort 1916, vol. 2, 138–39. 21. Ibid., 272–73. 22. Ibid. 23. Trans. Hort 1916, vol. 2, 310–11. 24. Trans. Jones 1951, vol. 6, 286–87. 25. Ibid., 286–89. 26. Ibid., 288–89. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 29. Trans. Clement and Hoffleit, vol. 8, 238–39. 30. For mandrake and nightshade plants in ancient Greek and Roman medicine, see Ramoutsaki 2002 and Scarborough 2012 and 2010. 31. Trans. Potter 1995, 76–79. 32. Trans. Beck 2005, 280. 33. Ibid., 281. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Trans. Beck 2005, 356. 37. Ibid., 279. 38. Ibid., 39. Trans. Spencer 1935, 288–91. 40. Ibid., 294–95. 41. Ibid., 294–97. 42. Trans. Adams 1856 (1972). 43. Trans. Johnston and Horsley 2011, vol. 3, 232–33.

Chapter 5

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

This chapter covers several psychoactive plants which were used in the ancient Greek and Roman world. These substances appear often in ancient medical texts, but they have less mention in literature. Each one was used for recreational purposes. HENBANE Henbane (hyoscyamus niger) is also in the Nightshade family or Solanaceae. Just like the other plants in this family, henbane has psychotropic alkaloids. It was used to induce hallucinations and divine visions. It had a reputation as a party drug. Pherecrates (Old Comedy) In Athenaeus, the discussion often turns to examples from ancient Comedy. It is thought that low characters, like courtesans (heterae), gave their names to certain comedies and were characters in them. Courtesans are women in ancient Greek society, who were noncitizens, and typically paid their bills by entertaining elite men in exchange for money and gifts. Athenaeus (13.567ad) contains a discussion about the work of courtesans and how comedies were named after them. In another passage (10.430e) from Athenaeus, a speaker quotes a Pherecrates comedy, Corianno. She was a courtesan and the comedy took place in a domestic setting. Intoxication was a part of the plot of the comedy. The context within the Athenaeus passage concerns a discussion of the 95

96

Chapter 5

appropriate amount of water mixed with wine. The comic fragment begins with the speaker introducing it, “Pherecrates in Corianno (fr. 76) mentions two parts water to four of wine, putting it this way:” (A.) It’s undrinkable, Glyce. (Glyce) Did she pour something watery into your cup? (A.) Actually, it’s entirely water. (Glyce) What did you do? How did you mix it for her, you nasty creature? (B.) Two parts water, ma’am— (Glyce) And how much wine? (B.) Four parts. (Glyce) Damn you to hell! You ought to be pouring wine for frogs!1

The characters complain about the weak wine. Intoxication is the goal in mind, and the servant is not supplying enough intoxicants. The comedy and plotline are lost. It contained other scenes featuring intoxication. In another scene of the comedy, a female character accuses an old man of being intoxicated on henbane. The fragment (fr. 78) is not mentioned in Athenaeus, but by late-Byzantium lexicographers, who defined the verb used in the scene. “You’re out of your mind (sic on henbane), an old man at your age.” It is assumed that the scene concerns a man visiting the women in the house. The old man has taken henbane and is acting crazy. The intoxication is unwelcome to the one speaking the line. Madness from henbane must be common for the audience to understand the reference and how it is somehow age-inappropriate for the old man to be on the drug. Other fragments in the lost comedy imply that an old man falls in love with a courtesan and acts inappropriate for his age.2 The verb used in the passage hyoskyamas caused Photius, the Suda, and Hesychius to make lexicon entries. The verb means to be out of one’s mind from drinking henbane. Hesychius (upsilon 209) writes that it means mania caused by a drink. The Suda (entry 123) also states that it is to suffer madness after drinking and it cites the fragment from Pherecrates. Because the root of the verb (hyosky-) means henbane, it is assumed the drink is henbane. Photius writes about henbane, “drinking it, they undergo madness.” The audience of the comedy would have to understand the henbane reference and other items from the comedy, lost to us.

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

97

Nicander In Nicander (Alexipharmaka lines 415–26), we see people overdose on henbane. Let no man in ignorance fill his belly with henbane, as men often do in error, or as children who, having lately put aside their swaddling-clothes and head-bindings, and their perilous crawling on all fours, and walking now upright with no anxious nurse at hand, chew its sprays of baleful flowers through witlessness, since they are just bringing to light the incisor teeth in their jaws, at which time itching assails their swollen gums.3

The poet imagines children taking the raw plant and eating it by accident. In Pliny and Dioscorides, it is understood that the leaves themselves cause intoxication and are dangerous. The child chews the leaves because he or she is in the habit of putting everything in their mouth. In medical writers, the drug in low doses is used to treat toothache and other bodily pains. There is no explanation as to why a man would use henbane, but the poet qualifies it with the adverb “often.” In other sections of his poem, the error can mean that people abuse the drug, while not understanding the risks. Plutarch In Plutarch’s Moralia, Table Talk or Quaes. Conv. 1.4, there is a discussion of the role of the symposiarch, who is the overseer of the party. It is his job to control the mood, the drinking, and the level of intoxication at the party. In this passage, henbane is considered too powerful for the drinking party. He will take care to bid the drinkers beware of all those games that, with no intent of seriousness, come roistering into parties like a drunken crowd, lest unawares the members of the party introduce an insolent violence bitter as henbane in their wine as they run riot with their so-called commands, ordering stammerers to sing, or bald men to comb their hair, or the lame to dance on a greased wine-skin.4

The imagined party digresses into madness and insanity. The overseer must avoid such outcomes. It is assumed that henbane may be an option at drinking parties. Overindulgence in intoxicants could lead to chaos and craziness. The ideal moderate blend would bring about a pleasant atmosphere and encourage conversation. In another passage, Plutarch considers henbane as a more powerful intoxicant than typical drunkenness. This section in Table Talk concerns different viewpoints on intoxication at the party and how to temper one’s intoxication.

98

Chapter 5

There is a spectrum between too much intoxication and just enough. Certain types of intoxication, like henbane, are not fit for the party. We learn in the passage that it was common for the ancients to use plants by inhaling their fragrance in order to mellow out their drunkenness. The larger question in the section is whether wearing the ivy plant on one’s head reduces intoxication or tempers it. Some drugs were thought to negate its effects. In the passage, there is a distinction made between appropriate drunkenness at the party versus inappropriate intoxication. A state of madness is not welcomed at the party. For song, laughter, and dancing are characteristic of men who drink wine in moderation; but babbling and talking about what is better left in silence is at once the work of actual intoxication and drunkenness. (645a)5

The speaker says that people show their true nature when drunk. Drinking wine induces lots of talking and revealing one’s inner thoughts. The speaker will control the topic of conversation of the current symposium by providing ten topics for discussion. The first topic concerns flower-garlands and whether they should be used at symposium. A story is told where the group is attending a party in Athens and the musician Erato hands out garlands of flowers to the participants. Ammonius, one of the speakers and attendants, makes fun of everybody, saying that the garlands make them look girlish. Plutarch turns the question over to the interlocutors. The doctor, Trypho, is asked to respond whether they ought to take off the garlands or whether there is a medical benefit for the one wearing them. Garlands made of ivy were thought to protect one from intoxication. Trypho begins speaking around 647a. He says that the art of medicine developed from the understanding of the medical properties of plants. He cites the religious offerings of plants and roots made by different cultures to deities, who were given credit for inventing medicine. Dionysus is mentioned as a discoverer of medicine because wine is used in medicine. The doctor says that Dionysus also introduced the practice of wearing ivy crowns as a protection against intoxication. Ivy produces coldness, which checks intoxication. The doctor mentions other intoxicating substances. The hazel (or walnut) gives off intoxicating odors. The narcissus plant receives its name from its narcotic properties, which include a heaviness of the head. The doctor quotes a line (683) from Sophocles Oedipus Colonus, which calls the narcissus flower the crown of the deities. The doctor explains that the stone and plant named amethyst do not negate intoxication, as folk knowledge maintains, but that the two items possess the

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

99

color of diluted wine, as a reminder to dilute wine. Other flowers may be inhaled to counteract or tone down intoxication from wine. For pure wine, when it attacks the head and severs body from mind’s control, distresses a man; and the exhalations of flowers are a wonderful help against this and protect the head against drunkenness as walls protect a citadel against attack—for warm flowers by their gentle relaxing action open the body’s ducts and give the wine a vent; and those which are soothingly cool check the fumes by their temperate touch, as for example the garland made of violets and roses, for the scent of both flowers diminishes and restrains headaches. (647c–d)6

He describes that the plants henna, saffron, and hazelwort have a soporific effect, when inhaled by those who are intoxicated. Those who inhale these flowers become calm and less intoxicated. The smell of the flowers enters the brain via the nose and has an immediate effect on the user. These items warm and stimulate the brain. The doctor says that these garlands of flowers hung around the neck were called fumigators (hypothymides). The chest of the one wearing it would become moist with perfumes sweating from the flowers. The doctor warns that one should not underestimate the power of inhaling fragrances made from flowers. He says: And it has happened to men engaged in gathering the poppy’s juice that they fell into a faint if they did not protect themselves against the exhalation streaming from the poppy.7

The second question for the group is whether ivy is by nature hot or cold. Ammonius agrees that garlands of flowers are beneficial and not girlish after all. But why, he asks, is ivy considered cold when it is traditionally considered hot and having the properties of inflaming wine and making it more intoxicating, when its berries are added? And so our beloved Dionysus, who frankly named unmixed wine “intoxicant” and himself “Intoxicator,” did not introduce ivy as a specific against drunkenness or as something inimical to wine. Rather it seems to me that, just as lovers of wine, if the grape is not available, use beer or a cider, and others make datepalm wine, so too Dionysus, when in wintertime he wanted a garland made from the vine and saw the vines stripped and leafless, welcomed the very similar ivy.8

Plutarch responds: “And what has been said,” I continued, “about ivy mixed with wine causing intoxication is not true, for one cannot call the condition it induces in drinkers

100

Chapter 5

intoxication, but a disorder and a derangement like that induced by henbane and many similar things which excite the intellect to madness.”9

Ivy causes intoxication when mixed with wine, but the intoxication is closer to madness. It is compared to the intoxication caused by henbane. Both drugs are considered too potent for a standard drinking party. The usage of henbane must have been commonly used and seen at parties. There is a distinction made between moderate intoxication versus drug-induced madness. People had their choice of intoxication. The section in Plutarch covers the usage of other intoxicants, like beer, and contains the idea of inhaling substances for their mind-altering effects. Besides opium and henbane, other drugs are imagined as commonly available and used at drinking parties. To Plutarch and his company, the appropriate amount of intoxication will allow for a continued conversation among the participants. Pliny Pliny (25.36.17) writes about henbane. He says that Hercules was given credit for discovering the properties of the plant. Henbane goes by several different names and has different varieties. He writes that henbane causes “insanity” and “giddiness.” He says that it is used in medicine and explains its extraction. It has the character of wine, and therefore injures the head and brain. Use is made of the seed as it is or when the juice has been extracted from it. The juice is extracted separately also from the stems and leaves. They also use the root, but the drug is, in my opinion, a dangerous medicine in any form. In fact, it is well known that even the leaves affect the brain if more than four are taken in drink; yet the ancients used to take them in wine under the impression that fever was so brought down. An oil is made from the seed, as I have said, which by itself if poured into the ears deranges the brain. It is a wonderful thing that they have prescribed remedies for those who have taken the drink, which implies that it is a poison, and yet have included it among remedies; so unwearied have been researches in making every possible experiment, even to compelling poisons to be helpful remedies.10

Although Pliny categorizes the drug as too dangerous to use, his narrative implies that one could use a smaller dose and feel the effects without risk. People may have used the drug to experience elevated mood. It may be extracted and poured in the ear to cause derangement of the mind. There is a remedy for overdose, which implies that people took it for recreation. To Pliny, medicine oversteps its bound of propriety by using a poison as

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

101

a remedy. In another section (28.74), Pliny discusses breast milk as a remedy for henbane-induced madness and other types of drug-induced madness.11 Dioscorides Dioscorides (4.68) describes three types of henbane. The first two are psychotropic. “Both these plants cause madness and are soporific; they are difficult to use. But the third one is highly useful for treatments.”12 Dioscorides describes the extraction of henbane into a juice, which has many medical uses. The juice is better than poppy juice and a more powerful analgesic. Its first green shoots pounded and mixed with this year’s flour are shaped into little pastilles and stored. The juice and the juice from the dry seed are primarily suitable for analgesic pessaries, for severe and fevered rheums, for earaches, for ailments associated with the uterus, and with meal or with barley groats for inflammations of the eyes, of the feet, and for the other inflammations.13

Dioscorides describes a myriad of medical treatments using henbane extraction and raw henbane. One prescription combines the drug with opium poppy. The seed also offers the same cures, being good for coughs, catarrh, running eyes, and for severe pain; also for the female flow and for the other bleedings when an amount of one obol is drunk with poppy seed and hydromel.14

The drug is used in Dioscorides as a painkiller with topical and internal applications. Regardless of its psychotropic effects, the drug could be prepared in such a way that its use was safe and effective. HEMLOCK Theophrastus Hemlock (Conium maculatum) is a deadly and toxic plant which contains psychotropic alkaloids. It was administered to Socrates as capital punishment.15 The drug was famous for poisoning people, but it was also used in medicine and for recreational intoxication. In Theophrastus (History of Plants 9.16.8), experts on poisons have knowledge about hemlock and other dangerous plants. Thrasyas of Mantineia had discovered, as he said, a poison which produces an easy and painless end; he used the juices of hemlock, poppy, and other such

102

Chapter 5

herbs, so compounded as to make a dose of conveniently small size, weighing only somewhat less than a quarter of an ounce. For the effects of this compound there is absolutely no cure, and it will keep any length of time without losing its virtue at all. He used to gather his hemlock, not just anywhere, but at Susa or some other cold and shady spot; and so too with the other ingredients; he also used to compound many other poisons, using many ingredients. His pupil Alexias was also clever and no less skillful than his master, being also versed in the science of medicine generally.16

Theophrastus writes about drug dealers, root cutters, and poisoners who were experts on medicine. Even though their work was considered lower class, they sold their special poisons for a high price, sometimes to governments for capital punishment. The poison mentioned in the passage had multiple deadly ingredients so that no antidote could be used. These same ingredients were sold at the markets and were used for recreation and as medicine. It was the lower classes and the slaves who supplied drugs and became experts on them. Menander (New Comedy) Just as with hellebore, mandrake, and henbane, hemlock also appears on the comic stage. Menander has a comedy titled “Women Who Drank Hemlock” (Koneiazomenai). According to a scholia on the passage, the comedy mentioned the philosopher Epimenides, who was known for his drug knowledge.17 The plot is lost to us, and the surviving fragments do not provide enough information for a reconstruction. One might imagine a comedy with drinking parties and courtesans, since other ancient comedies contained these themes. It is possible that the women attending the party or hosting it were drinking hemlock, as the title implies. It is hard to imagine a comedy dealing with capital punishment or poisoning, unless it had political themes. New Comedy, which Menander wrote, did not cover political topics, but rather featured intimate domestic settings with intricate plotlines. Nicander The poet Nicander (Alexipharmaka lines 186–94) imagines people using hemlock. He describes hemlock usage as a dangerous venture. Take note too of the noxious draught which is hemlock, for this drink assuredly looses disaster upon the head bringing the darkness of night: the eyes roll, and men roam the streets with tottering steps and crawling upon their hands; a terrible choking blocks the lower throat and the narrow passage of the windpipe; the extremities grow cold; and in the limbs the stout arteries are contracted;

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

103

for a short while the victim draws breath like one swooning, and his spirit beholds Hades.18

As with the other passages from Nicander, the setting of drug overdose is hardly mentioned. It may be assumed that many of his examples show recreational drugs usage. For hemlock, the author imagines men roaming the streets intoxicated on the drug. The context is not capital punishment nor malicious poisoning. The person has decided to use the drug regardless of the consequences. Nicander describes him as paying a severe price, as he either dies or nearly dies. Pliny Pliny covers hemlock in several passages. In the one below (14.137.28), he considers the popularity of drinking wine and using drugs. People seek out intoxication in dangerous ways. He writes that hemlock could be taken before drinking wine. It would intensify the intoxication of the wine, while negating the harmful effects of hemlock. And if anybody cares to consider the matter more carefully, there is no department of man’s life on which more labor is spent—as if nature had not given us the most healthy of beverages to drink, water, which all other animals make use of, whereas we compel even our beasts of burden to drink wine! And so much toil and labor and outlay is paid as the price of a thing that perverts men’s minds and produces madness, having caused the commission of thousands of crimes, and being so attractive that a large part of mankind knows of nothing else worth living for! Nay, what is more, to enable us to take more, we reduce its strength by means of a linen strainer, and other enticements are devised and even poisonous mixtures are invented to promote drinking, some men taking a dose of hemlock before they begin, in order that fear of death may compel them to drink, while others take powdered pumice and preparations which I am ashamed to teach the use of by describing them.19

Pliny says that people are obsessed with procuring and drinking wine. The overindulgence in wine causes madness and can overtake one’s life. Even after watering down the wine, people still add psychotropic drugs to increase the effects. Pliny shares and disapproves of a dangerous drinking game, where people take hemlock, feel its effects, then counteract them with wine. Pliny seems to indicate alcoholism and drug addiction, as these pursuits take over one’s life. He describes recreational intoxication as a lifestyle. In another section (20.131.51), Pliny covers the psychoactive plant rue and explains the application of hemlock. Rue was used often in ancient medicine

104

Chapter 5

and is cited in medicine as a substitute for cannabis. The two plants were thought to cure grief and had a myriad of applications. But among our chief medicinal plants is rue. The cultivated kind has the wider leaves and the more bushy branches; the wild variety is harsh in its effects and sharper in all respects. The juice is extracted by pounding with a moderate sprinkling of water, and is kept in a copper box. An overdose of this juice possesses poisonous qualities, especially in Macedonia near the river Aliacmon. Strangely enough, it is neutralized by the juice of hemlock; so there are actually poisons of poisons, and hemlock juice is good for the hands and face of those who gather rue. Further, rue, especially the Gallic variety, is one of the chief ingredients of antidotes. Any sort of rue, however, is even by itself a powerful antidote, the pounded leaves being taken in wine, especially against aconite and mistletoe; likewise, whether given in drink or in food, against poisonous fungi. . . . To prevent the after-effects of drinking a decoction of the leaves is taken before indulgence in wine.20

From the passage, we learn the ancient medical rationale that poisons can negate poisons. The deadly hemlock can be used to protect oneself against the deadly side effects of rue, when harvesting it. Rue is taken as an antidote for other poisons as well, like aconite and mushrooms. Just like hemlock, it may be taken before drinking wine, although it is used to mellow out the intoxication or prevent a hangover. In another section (25.151.95), Pliny writes a general entry on hemlock and its uses. Hemlock too is poisonous, a plant with a bad name because the Athenians made it their instrument of capital punishment, but its uses for many purposes must not be passed by. It has a poisonous seed, but the stem is eaten by many both as a salad and when cooked in a saucepan.21

He mentions its use in capital punishment. The plant was also part of people’s diets and had many uses. Pliny discusses the antidote to hemlock poisoning. The seed and leaves have a chilling quality, and it is this that causes death; the body begins to grow cold at the extremities. The remedy lies in using the warming nature of wine before the vital parts are reached; but taken in wine hemlock is invariably fatal.22

The drug causes death because of its cold properties. The process may be reversed if wine is taken before the hemlock reaches the entire body. If the hemlock is in the wine, then there is no cure. He explains how hemlock causes death.

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

105

It causes death by thickening the blood—this is its other outstanding property— and for this reason spots are to be seen on the bodies of those who have been killed in this way. This juice is used instead of water as a solvent for drugs.23

The cold properties of the drug ultimately thicken the blood and cause the body to fail. Wine was thought to have warm properties, which could counteract it. Although a dangerous drug, Pliny says its juice is often used as a solvent for making other drugs. The passage discusses medical applications with hemlock, including treatment for the eyes, as well as pain and inflammation of the body. In another passage (28.74.21), fresh milk can be used to treat hemlock overdose, just as it can be used to treat madness caused by henbane. Sextus Empiricus In Sextus Empiricus (second century CE, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1.81–82), there is a narrative of people taking large doses of drugs and not being hurt by them. In respect of our “idiosyncrasies,” our differences are such that some of us digest the flesh of oxen more easily than rock-fish, or get diarrhea from the weak wine of Lesbos. An old wife of Attica, they say, swallowed with impunity thirty drams of hemlock, and Lysis took four drams of poppy juice without hurt.24

The theme in the section is human physiology and how it is different for different people. Some people are more sensitive to food and drugs. The examples are a bit mythological, since we do not know who the people are. He imagines a woman taking a large dose of hemlock and not being harmed. Another person took a large dose of opium poppy and is not harmed. His point is that drugs do not affect everybody the same way. His examples require the assumption that people took hemlock and opium for recreation and intoxication. This assumption includes the widespread availability of these drugs and common usage of them. St. Basil of Caesarea In the letters of St. Basil (fourth century CE), we find references to hemlock and other deadly drugs. In the following letter (211), he writes to his friend Olympus. And when I read the letter of your Honor, I became more pleased and cheerful than is my wont, and when I entered into conversation with your most beloved sons, I seemed to behold you yourself. They, when they found my soul in much distress, caused me to forget the hemlock which the dream-vendors and

106

Chapter 5

dream-hucksters among you are carrying around against us for the gratification of those who have hired them. But as for letters, I have sent some, others also we shall write later, if you will. Only may there be some benefit from them to those who receive them.25

Basil imagines hemlock being sold and supplied by practitioners of magic. These people, the dream sellers, would sell the drug and promise visions to the buyer. He fears that they will be hired to poison Christians. In other letters by him, he brings up deadly drugs as a metaphor for bothersome things. There was opposition between the practice of magic and Christianity during the Roman Empire. Basil considered the practitioners of magic and their drugs as his enemies. OPIUM POPPY Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) was widely used in the ancient world. It is an addictive psychotropic plant, which can kill the user. The drug is known for stopping pain, causing sleep, and inducing visions. It was traded in the Bronze Age and used in religion, medicine, and wine.26 The plant was associated with Demeter and her worship.27 The plant has many references in Greek and Roman medicine.28 We also see it used in ancient magic. The plant was grown, extracted, and sold at markets throughout the Roman Empire. Nicander In Nicander (Alexipharmaka lines 433–42), opium overdose is described. Learn further that when men drink the tears of the poppy, whose seeds are in a head, they fall fast asleep; for their extremities are chilled; their eyes do not open but are bound quite motionless by their eyelids. With the exhaustion an odorous sweat bathes all the body, turns the cheeks pale, and causes the lips to swell; the bonds of the jaw are relaxed, and through the throat the labored breath passes faint and chill. And often either the livid nail or wrinkled nostril is a harbinger of death; sometimes too the sunken eyes.29

Poppy tears contain the juice (opos) of the head of the poppy plant. Nicander imagines the user drinking too much of it. As with other psychotropic drugs, it has cooling properties, which in large doses kills the user. Nicander recommends waking up the user with hot wine, honey, rose oil, and other items. If it does not work, then he recommends slapping the person until they wake up. The one overdosing must vomit their stomach contents to rid themselves

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

107

of the remaining drug. Nicander’s testimony represents overdose from recreational usage. Pliny In Pliny (18.299), we see the commonality of growing and harvesting opium poppy. One of these seasons, this last one, is the same also for sowing flax and poppy. For poppy Cato gives the following rule: ‘On land used for corn burn any twigs and brushwood left over from your utilization of them. Sow poppy in the place where you have burnt them.’ Wild poppy boiled in honey is wonderfully serviceable for making throat-cures, and also cultivated poppy is a powerful soporific. So far as to winter sowing.30

Cato (third to second century BCE), a senator from the Roman Republic, wrote a book on farming where he recommended growing opium poppy and using it for medicine. The Roman poet Columella (first century CE, On Agriculture 10.314–17) recommends selling one’s opium harvest at the market. In another section from Pliny (20.198–99), we see the effects of opium poppy and how the juice was harvested. Of the cultivated poppy the calyx itself of the white kind is pounded and is taken in wine to induce sleep. . . . From the dark poppy a soporific is obtained by making incisions in the stalk, when the buds are forming (as Diagoras advises), or when the flowers are falling (as Iollas recommends), at the third hour of a clear day, that is to say, when the dew on the plant has dried up. They recommend that the incision be made beneath the head and calyx, and in no other variety either is an incision made into the head itself. . . . Poppy juice however being copious thickens, and squeezed into lozenges is dried in the shade; it is not only a soporific, but if too large a dose be swallowed the sleep even ends in death.31

He envisions it taken in wine. The juice is acquired by slicing the heads and milking them. It may also be taken in pill form (lozenges). Pliny cites previous experts on extracting the juice. In this passage, Pliny (20.202–4) describes wild opium poppy and different ways to use it and test its purity. All kinds of cultivated poppy are larger than the wild. The heads are round, while those of the wild are long and small, though for all purposes more effective. The poppy is boiled and the liquid drunk for sleeplessness; with the same water the face is fomented. The best poppies grow on dry soils, and where the rainfall is slight. When the heads themselves and the leaves are boiled down,

108

Chapter 5

the juice is called meconium, and is much weaker than opium. The chief test of opium is its smell, that of pure opium being unbearable; the next best test is to put it in a lamp, when it should burn with a bright, clear flame, and smell only when it has gone out; adulterated opium does not behave in this fashion. Adulterated opium is also harder to light, and is continually going out. A further test of pure opium is by water, on which it floats as a light cloud, while the impure gathers into blisters. But especially wonderful is the fact that pure opium is detected by the summer sun. For pure opium sweats and melts until it becomes like freshly gathered juice. Mnesides thinks that opium is best kept by adding the seed of henbane, others by putting it in beans.32

Wild poppy is found in the wilderness. The plant grows naturally in the area. It is more potent than the varieties grown on farms (cultivated). The continual farming of opium had made the genetics weaker over time. A juice made from the boiled heads of opium poppy is weaker and can be used more safely. There are concerns about adulterated opium, which means that people were buying gum and extract at the market. Dioscorides In Dioscorides (64.1–7), the same information, shared by Pliny, may be found. Dioscorides describes the property of the plants as cooling. The juice is used to treat insomnia or mixed with barley groats for other applications. It may be used for killing pain, causing sleep, curing digestion, and for coughs. The juice causes sleep when merely smelled. Dioscorides writes that people adulterate opium poppy with other psychotropic plants like wild lettuce. If the extract was weak, other plants can increase its intoxicating potency. Dioscorides warns that the raw extract can affect the harvester when it gets on the skin. Ancient Magic In the last chapter, there is an example from ancient magic where opium and mandrake were combined to produce a powerful narcotic. In this example (PGM 4.1716–1870) from the same collection of magic, opium is used for recreation. It is a binding spell used for attracting a person for erotic reasons. The spell requires the usage and fumigation of psychotropic plants. The mixture includes frankincense powder, storax, opium, myrrh, frankincense gum, saffron, and bdella. The whole thing is mixed with wine and burnt as an offering throughout the usage of the spell. The spell claims that the mixture of plants will provide inspiration or “soul” for the procedure. The efficacy of the spell is confirmed by the user

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

109

having a vision while dreaming. The spells warn, if no dream appears, the spirit is busy attending to other matters. The ingredients play the main role in achieving the outcome of the spell, i.e., the dream. Dioscorides covers each of these ingredients and indicates that they are soporific or cause sleep. Macrobius Macrobius (fifth century CE) wrote when Christianity was dominant during the Roman Empire and paganism was mostly outlawed. Pagan festivals were no longer sponsored or supported by the government. His book covers a mock symposium of learned guests and occurred on the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The book is written like Athenaeus and Plutarch as a banquet of learned participants. Macrobius describes the origins and original traditions of Saturnalia, which were established during the Roman kingdom, and changes made to the festivity after the establishment of the Roman republic. Opium poppy played a role in the festival, which is partly in honor to the goddess Mania or Madness, the mother of the Roman god of the household, Lares. In this passage (Saturnalia 1.7.35), he addresses the use of opium poppy plants at the festival. For some time it was the practice of sacrificing children to Mania, mother of the Lares, to assure the well-being of household members. After the expulsion of Tarquin, the consul Junius Brutus decided that the sacrifice should be celebrated differently, ordering that the gods’ favor be sought with heads of garlic and poppy: that way the terms of Apollo’s oracle stipulating “heads” could be satisfied, while the crime attaching to the ill-omened sacrifice would be avoided. So it came to be that likenesses of Mania hung before each household’s door to avert any danger that might threaten the household’s members, and the games themselves came to be called the Compitalia, from the crossroads [compita] in which they were celebrated.33

There is no way to verify Macrobius’s claim about the child sacrifice nor about the substitution of opium poppy plants to appease Apollo’s oracle. In his time, so it seems, the plant was hung on the door of one’s house to avert the anger of the goddess, Mania or Madness. The holiday of Saturnalia, occurring in December, featured intoxication and a party-like atmosphere lasting several days. The opium poppy may have been used as an intoxicant during the festival, and the door custom could serve as a symbol of its role at the event.

110

Chapter 5

Darnel Darnel is like wheat and grows with wheat crops. The plant was not preferred as food because of its psychotropic effects. It is psychotropic because ergot fungus grows on darnel plants.34 The ancients recognized this fungus as rust (erysibe), which was deadly to the crops. The ancients used darnel in different ways, including medicine, food, and intoxication. As covered in chapter 2, scholars consider darnel as a possible source of ergot used in ancient religious drinks. Rinella (2011) writes about darnel and its role as in intoxicant for the ancient Greeks and Romans:

Darnel, known to the Greeks as aira, was also called thyaros (the plant of frenzy), which appears to indicate “an awareness of the psychotropic properties of ergot itself.” Greek farmers also utilized a sievelike implement called the airapinon to separate the aira from their cultivated grain. Meaning “aira drinker,” airapinon was apparently a folk metaphor for a person intoxicated by aira.35

Rinella is quoting Road to Eleusis (1978) in this passage. The darnel plant was separated from the wheat harvest because it was considered toxic and low quality. People knew how to become intoxicated using an extraction of the plant. Rinella also cites Garnsey (1999), who writes about food in the Greek and Roman world. Garnsey covers the way the ancients thought about darnel. Farmers had to work hard to separate invading weeds from their food crops. Garnsey writes about this dilemma in the ancient world. There is a special category of wild foods, which formed part of the normal diet simply because the plants in question grew in the cultivated area and could not be separated effectively from the regular crops. In times of scarcity their contribution to the diet increased in significance, and often with bad effects. Before the introduction of effective weedkillers in the twentieth century, there was no such thing as a field of wheat or barley, for multiple weeds grew and were harvested along with the crop. . . . Galen has a heading: On sundry seeds that are found mixed with every grain. Galen’s father, a proto-agricultural scientist, investigated the nature of the intrusive seeds. He was especially intrigued by darnel and aigilops, and decided that they were mutations. He recommended that they be selected out because of their noxious qualities. . . . Galen was interested in such weeds for professional, medical reasons. He noted that they induced headaches, ulcers and other skin-diseases, but missed or passed over their “stupefying” effects. Mid-sixteenth century Italian sources are explicit about darnel’s properties: “The bread that has this [sc. darnel] in it, besides disturbing the mind by making people act as if drunk, causes much weariness and

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

111

nausea.” A seventeenth-century writer referred to darnel-contaminated bread as “dazed” bread, which “often causes people to beat their heads against walls.” One may assume that the symptoms were not confined to the regions south of the Alps (the French for “darnel” is ivraie, from ivre, “drunk”), or to the early modern period.36

Darnel was used in medicine and sometimes as food. Galen is influenced by Theophrastus, who wrote about wheat crops mutating into darnel crops. In reality, the darnel choked out the wheat or barley crops. There is no reference in Galen to the intoxicating power of darnel. Other ancient writers testify to them. Pliny There are not many references in the canon to darnel. Passages testify to it being inedible, although poor and thrifty people still ate it. Pliny considers the intoxicating effects of darnel. When it was eaten or fumigated, it caused intoxication. Pliny (18.156.44) writes about it in a section on diseases of grain: The seed of darnel is extremely minute, and is enclosed in a prickly husk. If introduced into bread, it will speedily produce vertigo; and it is said that in Asia and Greece, the bath-keepers, when they want to disperse a crowd of people, throw this seed upon burning coals.37

He imagines it made into bread and causing vertigo. If it is fumigated, it has intense effects on those inhaling it. There is one other reference to darnel being used at the baths. Plutarch Plutarch (Moralia 658e, Table Talk 3.10) imagines a similar usage of darnel at the bathhouses. He describes the side effects of inhaling it. And therefore the most skillful of the public officers forbid those that rent the baths to burn olive-tree wood, or throw darnel seed into the fire, because the fumes of it dizzy and bring the headache to those that bathe.38

Headache is sometimes used to indicate intoxication, as we will see below with Galen on cannabis. The experience mentioned by Plutarch sounds unpleasant and is meant to force everyone to leave the baths.

112

Chapter 5

CANNABIS The ancient Greeks and Romans used cannabis (Cannabis sativa, indica, and ruderalis) for its fibers and its psychoactive properties. They made sails, rope, shoes, and clothes with processed cannabis stalks. The flower of the cannabis was dried and used in food, medicine, and recreational intoxication. There are many mentions of the plant in ancient medicine, which testify to its effectiveness, myriad of medical usages, and intoxicating side effects.39 Herodotus The historian Herodotus gives us an early reference to cannabis in his narration of the culture of the Scythians. The Scythian race lived around the Black Sea and the Eurasian Steeps. The Thracians and other tribes of northern Greece were related to the Scythians, and they inhabited the Greek world. Herodotus (4.74) writes: Now there is a plant called cannabis, which grows in their land and which most resembles flax, except that cannabis is far superior in its thickness and size. It grows both wild and cultivated, and from it the Thracians make clothing very much like garments of linen.40

The ancient Greek and Roman world recognized two types of cannabis, wild and cultivated. A cultivated variety indicates that it was grown on farms. The passage refers to using cannabis fibers for making clothes. Flax is another plant used in the ancient world for making clothes, which we call linen. Herodotus (4.75) refers to psychoactive cannabis in a passage about Scythian funeral practices. Well, the Scythians take the seeds of this cannabis, creep beneath the wool covering the stakes, and throw the seeds onto the blazing-hot stones within. When the seeds hit the stones, they produce smoke and give off vapor such as no steam bath in Hellas could surpass. The Scythians howl, awed and elated by the vapor. This takes the place of a bath for them, since they do not use any water at all to wash their bodies.41

The scene shows the Scythians fumigating cannabis and becoming intoxicated. Ancient narrations of Scythian smoke tend to point out the wine-like intoxicating effects of the drug. Archaeological records show a long-term relationship between Scythians and cannabis usage.42 Herodotus (1.202.2) mentions another tribe, the Messegetae, who are related to the Scythians and use cannabis for intoxication.43

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

113

They have also discovered other trees bearing fruit which they use when they gather together in groups. They sit in a circle around a fire and throw this fruit into it, inhaling the fumes as the fruit burns; they then become intoxicated by the vapors just as Hellenes become intoxicated with wine. They add more of the fruit to the fire and become even more intoxicated until they reach a point where they stand up and begin to sing and dance. This, then, is said to be their way of life.44

The context is different from the Scythian funeral practice. The Messegetae are using the plant for recreational intoxication and not for religious purposes. Ancient writers have mentioned the Scythian smoke in many different passages, sometimes the context is religious, other times it is recreational.45 Aristophanes (Old Comedy) Ruck (2014) sees references to cannabis and Scythian smoke in Aristophanes’s Clouds, a comedy which parodied Socrates.46 In the comedy, Strepsiades goes to the “Thinkery” of Socrates to learn how to win arguments and dismiss his debts with the collectors. The comedy depicts the school of Socrates as a mystery religion, where one must be initiated. The chorus of the comedy is clouds, which can imply smoke as much as the traditional idea of natural phenomena. Socrates is depicted as a smoke-walker in the comedy and Strepsiades is shown at one time (line 1501) attempting to walk on the air, just like Socrates.47 When Socrates is first introduced in the comedy, he is lowered down from the air in a bucket, thus treading the air. When Strepsiades first arrives at the school (lines 94–99), the scene is described thus: That is a Thinkery for sage souls. Some gentlemen live there who argue convincingly that the sky is a barbeque lid, and that it surrounds us, and that we’re the coals. These people train you, if you give them money, to win any argument whether it’s right or wrong.48

Ruck sees the image of a Scythian stove, which is used to burn cannabis. These small stoves are portable coal burners used to burn psychoactive herbs for mixing with wine. These types of burners were used by the Scythians to fumigate cannabis inside of small tents. The audience would see the jokes about Scythian smoke and cannabis. Scythians lived in Greece and Athens. Ephippus (Middle Comedy) Cannabis cakes are mentioned in an ancient comedy from Ephippus (fourth to third century BCE). Athenaeus (14.642e) quotes his lost comedy, Cydon, fr.

114

Chapter 5

13. The section concerns tragemeta or desserts eaten at the symposium. The fragment from the comedy consists of a list of edibles. And after dinner (they eat) seed . . . chick pea, . . . Egyptian bean, gruel, cheese, honey, sesame cakes, [corrupt], pyramid cakes, apple, nut, milk, cannabis cakes, shellfish, barley juice, the brain of Zeus.49

Cannabis cakes are one edible item for the drinking party. The fragment is also cited by Euthantius in a discussion about the Egyptian bean as it relates to a passage in Homer. He indicates in that passage that the Egyptian bean was also psychotropic. Barley juice may also offer a mind-altering experience at the party. The trend of eating cannabis cakes at parties was still happening during the Roman Empire. Catullus Griffith (2019) speculates that cannabis is the unnamed drug or unguent in Catullus 13. In the poem, the poet asks Fabullus to come and party with him. You will dine well (cenabis bene), my Fabullus, with me in a few days, if the gods favor you, if you should bring with you a good and great meal, not without a beautiful girl and wine and wit and all the accoutrements. These things if, as I say, you should bring, our charming friend, then you will dine well; for the purse of your Catullus is full of spider webs. But in return you will receive unmixed loves or whatever is sweeter and more elegant. Be sure, I will give an unguent, which the Venuses and Cupids gave to my girl, which (unguent) when you smell it, you will ask the gods to turn you into an entire nose, Fabullus.

The invitation implies that Catullus will provide the drugs, if Fabullus brings the food, wine, and girls. The first lines of the poem (cenabis bene) may imply cannabis (cannabis). The poet is bragging that he has the good stuff, which his girl brought from overseas. The last line of the poem implies intoxication as Fabullus becomes an entire nose akin to a hallucination. Pliny Pliny (19.56.173) mentions cannabis in several passages. In the following excerpt, he describes how to harvest plants commonly grown in the garden.

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

115

Next is cannabis, most useful for ropes. It is sown after the spring wind begins. The denser it is sown, the thinner its stalks. The seed of it, when mature, is harvested at the autumn equinox and it is dried by either the sun, wind, or smoke. Cannabis itself is pulled at the time of harvest and, having been debarked, it is processed during the night.

Pliny gives us insight into the harvesting of cannabis. The stalks are used for making fiber and the flower is separated for other purposes, like medicine and intoxication. The seed of the flower is contained within a dense grouping of plant matter. In modern-day botany it is called efflorescence. Ancient references to cannabis seed include the flower, which contain the psychotropic properties. The maturity of the seed is determined by whether the flower is potent or not. Another section of Pliny (20.259.97) testifies to the medical use of cannabis as well as its mind-altering side effects. The context is plants grown in gardens. Cannabis, rather dark and rough in respect to its leaves, first grew in the forests. Its seed is said to extinguish men’s semen. A liquid from this casts out earworms and whatever animal has entered, but with a headache, and its force is so strong that it is said to coagulate water when poured into it; and so it is good for farm-animals’ bellies when drunk in water. Cooked in water, the root softens contracted joints, likewise gouts and similar attacks; uncooked it is spread on burns, but is changed rather often before it dries out.50

Additional references to cannabis and its effectiveness appear in Dioscorides (3.148 and 149). Dioscorides, like Pliny and Herodotus, acknowledges wild versus cultivated varieties. The plant is thought to be useful in medicine for its drying properties. Ancient medical writers all testify to its headacheinducing high, as well as its effectiveness for medical treatment. Galen Galen covers cannabis and its medical usages in many passages of his works. From his testimony it was commonly available and very effective. In one passage (De Alimentorum Facultatibus 6.550), he cover the eating of cannabis cakes at drinking parties. This passage is a general entry for the plant. Concerning cannabis seed: Even though the plant itself of cannabis is not similar in any way to agnus, so the seed is similar in power to the seed (of agnus), but it is completely different; it causes ill-digestion and stomach-ache, is headache-causing, and foul tasting. And still, nevertheless, some people, after drying it, consume it along with other

116

Chapter 5

desserts. And it sufficiently warms and on account of this (property) it overtakes the head, if an abundance is taken in a short (period of time), while sending up hot vapor to the head, it is also medicinal.51

He describes its usage as tragmenta, desserts eaten at drinking parties. The plant causes intoxication, thus it overtakes the head. The plant may be used as an effective drug. One will find cannabis entries in Greek and Roman medical texts all the way into the Middle Ages. Pausanias Pausanias (second century CE) describes the different geographies of Greece and what is known about each place. In this passage (Descriptions of Greece, 6.26.6) about the Greek land of Elis, he testifies to the mass production of cannabis crops. The Elean land is good for fruit and especially to grow flax and other things. They grow cannabis and linen or flax, as much as their land is fit to nourish it. But (their) threads, from which the Seres make garments, are not from bark, but are made in another way, thus.

Flax is grown for food and fiber, just as the cannabis, but the Eleans make their cloths from silk. The reference to the Seres is a reference to making silk. It is unclear what the Eleans did with acres and acres of cannabis crops. In Roman times there was an industry and trade around cannabis. Artemidorus There is a text from Artemidorus (second century CE) on the interpretation of dreams. It covers commonly occurring symbols in dreams, which are then interpreted for the dreamer to have significance. A practitioner of magic may offer dreams to clients and interpret them. In this section (On Dream Interpretation 3.59), cannabis appearing in one’s dream is interpreted. And cannabis increases the force of the things that are signified by hemp and flax and signifies exceeding tortures and strong bonds. Yet, when unraveled, it will release one from all things [for it alone is also unraveled after much rubbing]. And it is necessary to observe that each of these things foretells nothing ill-omened for merchants or salesmen and those whose living relates, directly or indirectly, to these things.52

The section before covers hemp and linen and their significance to the dreamer. Hemp as rope binds things and mean bad outcomes for the dreamer.

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

117

This section specifically covers cannabis used in other ways and its significance. Rubbing indicates the breaking up of the dried cannabis flower in preparation for usage. The drug was known to cure grief and release one from their troubles. The symbol in the dream indicates a release from one’s troubles. The plant appearing to those who work in the industry can only indicate good things to the dreamer. The passage indicates the commonality of cannabis and its usage for treating grief. It indicates an industry around cannabis. Diocletian Price Edict During the reign of emperor Diocletian (284–205 CE), the Roman economy was in turmoil, partially due to debasing the currency. Diocletian attempted to fix the situation by controlling prices of commodities in Roman markets. There is a document, which lists the items sold at the market and the set prices for each one.53 Cannabis seed is found on the list and assumingly would be available at the markets. The seed would consist of the bud or dried flower containing the actual seed. FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH These two commonly used incenses were not native to Greece and Rome, but they were imported from Africa and Asia.54 The ancients had wines made of these tree resins, and they fumigated them in different settings. They were used in religion and magic, as well as medicine and recreational intoxication. Dioscorides covers these two items (1.65 and 1.68). Frankincense causes mania or madness and myrrh causes sleep. Ancient Magic In the Greek Magical Papyrus, we see frankincense and myrrh being used to induce visions or hallucinations for the user. One spell (PGM 4.3172–3208) is meant to answer a question for concern for the user. The ingredients of the spell produce sleep and vivid dreams. The user must fumigate frankincense lumps and ask a lamp about the issue at hand. The dream was supposed to answer the user’s question or concern. Another spell (PGM 7.795–845) is meant to produce a dream and traces its lineage back to the ancient Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Democritus. The user is instructed to burn frankincense and speak a formula to induce sleep and visions. There are other vessel and lamp spells in the collection.55

118

Chapter 5

Kyphi In a passage from Plutarch (Isis and Osiris 383e, section 80), several psychotropic plants are mentioned as ingredients in the widely used religious incense named kyphi. The ancient world experienced intoxication from inhaling the smoke from psychotropic incense. Kyphi is a compound composed of sixteen ingredients: honey, wine, raisins, cyperus, resin, myrrh, aspalathus, seselis, mastich, bitumen, rush (= thorn apple), sorrel, and in addition to these both the junipers, of which they call one the larger and one the smaller, cardamum, and calamus. These are compounded, not at random, but while the sacred writings are being read to the perfumers as they mix the ingredients. . . . Most of the materials that are taken into this compound, inasmuch as they have aromatic properties, give forth a sweet emanation and a beneficent exhalation, by which the air is changed, and the body, being moved gently and softly by the current, acquires a temperament conducive to sleep; and the distress and strain of our daily carking cares, as if they were knots, these exhalations relax and loosen without the aid of wine. The imaginative faculty that is susceptible to dreams it brightens like a mirror, and makes it clearer no less effectively than did the notes of the lyre which the Pythagoreans used to employ before sleeping as a charm and a cure for the emotional and irrational in the soul. It is a fact that stimulating odors often recall the failing powers of sensation, and often again lull and quiet them when their emanations are diffused in the body by virtue of their ethereal qualities; even as some physicians state that sleep supervenes when the volatile portion of our food, gently permeating the digestive tract and coming into close contact with it, produces a species of titillation.56

The kyphi had psychotropic effects on the user. The result was likely a light stupor, which would create a religious silence and awe. Plutarch claims that inhaling kyphi causes sleepiness, a release of stress, and a change of mood. He compares it to the experience of being calmed by music. The ancient world used a lot of incense in religious and magical practice, as well as their daily lives. Luck (2006) speculated that the two most common types of incense, frankincense and myrrh, were psychoactive.57 Incense was also used in medicine as a treatment. The rationale behind incense is that good smells rid the space of bad smells or bad energy. Kyphi seemed to cause light intoxication and did not cause one to lose their senses, like one being drunk. NOTES 1. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 56–57.

Henbane, Hemlock, Opium, Darnel, Cannabis, Frankincense, and Myrrh

119

2. For more info about the comedy see Storey 2011, 453. 3. Trans. Gow and Scholfied 1953. 4. Trans. Clement and Hoffleit 1969, vol. 8, 58–59. 5. Ibid., 198–99. 6. Ibid., 212–13. 7. Ibid., 214–17. 8. Ibid., 218–21. 9. Ibid., 222–23. 10. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 162–63. 11. See Jones 1963, vol. 8, 52–53; see Pliny 23.49.95 for another mention. 12. Trans. Beck 2005, 276. 13. Ibid., 277. 14. Ibid. 15. See Arihan et al. 2014 for a discussion of Socrates and hemlock. 16. Trans. Hort 1916, 302–3. 17. See Arnott 1997, 218–19 for this comedy. 18. Trans. Gow and Scholfied 1953. 19. Trans. Rackham 1945, vol. 4, 276–77. 20. Trans. Jones 1951, vol. 6, 76–77.1, 76–77. 21. Trans. Jones and Andrews 1956, vol. 7, 244–45. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 244–45. 24. Trans. Bury 1933, 48–49. 25. Trans. Deferrari 1930, vol. 3, 216–17. 26. See Ilan 2022, McGovern 2003, and Merlin 2003 for discussions of opium in the Bronze Age. 27. Rinella 2011 and Hillman 2008 for discussions about Demeter and opium. 28. See Scarborough 1995 for Roman medicine and opium. 29. Trans. Gow and Scholfied 1953. 30. Trans. Rackham 1950, vol. 5, 334–35. 31. Trans. Jones 1951, vol. 6, 114–15. 32. Ibid., 116–19. 33. Trans. Kaster 2011, vol. 1, 82–83. 34. See Wasson et al. 1978, Wasson et al. 1992, Webster et al. 2000, Rinella 2011, and Carod-Artal 2013 for discussions. Also Hoffman 2015. 35. Rinella 2011, 87. 36. Garnsey 1999, 38–39. 37. Trans. Rackham 1950, vol. 5, 286–87. 38. Trans. Clement and Hoffleit 1969, vol. 8, 274–75. 39. For cannabis in ancient medicine see Sumler 2018 and Butrica 2010. For cannabis in the ancient world see Merlin 2003, Russo 2004, 2005, 2007, 2014, and Russo et al. 2010. 40. Trans. Strassler 2007, 311. 41. Ibid., 311. 42. See Merlin 2003.

120

Chapter 5

43. Pliny—Laughing Weed—24.102.164—psychoactive drugs mentioned in a lost text by Democritus, the ancient Greek philosopher (fifth to fourth century BCE); cannabis found in Bactria and around the Black Sea. The entire passage is worthing considering in great detail. 44. Ibid., 109. 45. See Sumler 2018 for a discussion of Scythian smoke. 46. Ruck 2014.76–81. 47. See Strabo Geography 7.3.3 for a reference to smoke-walkers. 48. Trans. Henderson 1998, 20–21. 49. Trans. Olson 2011, vol. 7, 256–57. 50. Trans. Butrica 2010, 28. 51. Trans. Alan Sumler. 52. Trans. Harris-McCoy 2012, 291. 53. Kropff, Antony. 2016. “An English Translation of the Edict on Maximum Prices,” On Academia.edu. 54. See Luck 2006 for a discussion of frankincense and myrrh. 55. For instance, PGM 7.219–734 and PDM 14.805–40. 56. Trans. Babbitt 1936, vol. 5, 188–89. 57. See Luck 2006, 485–88.

Chapter 6

Wine

Wine and drinking culture were deeply integrated in the Greek and Roman life. Daily usage and heavy intoxication were socially acceptable. Wine was used in medicine, religion, magic, and recreation in both cultures. The traditions of making wine and drinking go back to the Bronze Age and earlier. This chapter will focus on views of intoxication concerning wine with particular emphasis on overindulgence and perceived side effects of wine. These examples show extreme intoxication and drunken lifestyles. Many scenes contain a narrative of the appropriateness or inappropriateness of behaviors performed while one was drunk and intoxicated. Ancient wine was not very potent, as one might think based on the examples to follow. Fermentation methods in the ancient world were crude because of the inability to completely seal wine vats and containers. As air leaks into the vat, the fermentation process is stunted. The potency of ancient wine is estimated to be around 6 to 8 percent before dilution. The ancients diluted wine further to lessen its intoxicating effects.1 Poor fermentation methods also lead to a poor taste of the wine. Pine pitch was often used to seal the vats, which left a certain taste to the drink. Plants and minerals were added to wine to improve its taste and potency. The ancients did not always know what plants were in their wine, but they understood that different wines had different tastes, potencies, and intoxicating effects. The psychoactive plants mentioned throughout this book were added to wine during different stages of its manufacture. Additional herbs could be added before the wine was consumed, which would allow for customizing the taste and potency for the party. We see examples in previous chapters of drugs being added to the wine before it is served. Ancient wine had similar effects on the user as psychoactive plants and it is assumed that it contained them. Unmixed wine was dangerous and could cause death. Common side effects include stupor, temporary madness, 121

122

Chapter 6

hallucinations, violent behavior, and blackouts. The wine could be mixed with any ratio of water or used unmixed. The level of intoxication and experience would change depending on the wine itself, as well as the additives and water. The images of intoxication shown in ancient narrations imply a far more potent drug than simply lowalcohol wine. Accordingly, everybody in the ancient world who drank wine, used psychotropic substances. Ancient authors like Theophrastus, Pliny, Dioscorides, and Athenaeus, cover the different types of wine and their effects. The habits around consuming wine may be seen in literature taking place at the symposium and writings about the symposium. We have several ancient writings that take place at the symposium. In the ancient Greek world, Plato and Xenophon wrote dialogues that occur during the drinking party. In Xenophon, there is erotic entrainment between the intellectual dialogue.2 In Plato’s Symposium, the scene occurs on the second night of the party. The guests already had an intense night and they consume more moderately for the dialogue about the topic of love. On the second night, enough wine is still consumed so that most of the guests fall asleep before the conclusion of the dialogue. In the Roman world, mock symposiums were written by Plutarch (Table Talk), Athenaeus (Learned Banqueters), and Macrobius (Saturnalia). These writings envision learned men conducting intellectual conversation about drinking and literature. Accordingly, they cite poetry and literature which feature scenes of intoxication and partying. These works are rather long and cover a myriad of topics, thus they could not have been real drinking parties. Ancient pottery and frescoes depict scenes of drinking parties and intoxication. At a typical men’s or women’s symposium, participants reclined on couches. First, they ate a meal, then drinking and entertainment began. In some written accounts of the symposium, intellectual dialogue is encouraged. In visual depictions of the symposium, we see drinking, music, and sexual encounters between men and hired entertainment (courtesans or prostitutes). At the climax of intoxication and toward the end of the symposium, the komos occurred, where participants marched through the streets singing and acting wild. Not every symposium had a komos, but it was a feature of them. Beyond the symposium, there are scenes of drinking and parties in ancient Greek and Roman comedy. These productions also showed slaves, members of the lower class, and courtesans drinking wine and getting intoxicated. They at times show party life, which is left out of other symposium literature. Party life may also be seen in Roman literature. Petronius’s Satyricon gives us a view into a large Roman convivium with lots of food and drinking. The city of Rome, large provincial towns, and port towns had leisure culture in the form of taverns, brothels, wine bars, and other attractions. Rome’s

Wine

123

party culture may be seen in the poetry of Catullus, Horace, Ovid, Martial, Petronius, and Juvenal, just to name a few. It was fashionable to be invited to parties in Rome or to host large ones. HOMERIC INTOXICATION As mentioned in chapter 1, consumption of wine may be found in both of Homer’s epics. Galen quotes two passages from the Odyssey to show the effects of wine on the soul. The same themes about intoxication will appear throughout Greek and Roman narratives. In the Odyssey book 21.293–98, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, volunteers to string the bow of Odysseus and win the wedding contest over Penelope. The suitors are constantly depicted as drinking and acting outrageous at the end of the epic poem. The head suiter Antinous rebukes Odysseus in disguise for being so bold as to want to string the bow. It is wine that wounds you, honey-sweet wine, which works harm to others also, whoever takes it in great gulps, and drinks beyond measure. It was wine that made foolish the centaur, too, glorious Eurytion, in the hall of great-hearted Peirithous, when he went to the Lapithae, and when he had made his heart foolish with wine, in his madness he did evil in the house of Peirithous.3

He accuses Odysseus in disguise of being too intoxicated and interfering with matters that do not concern him. The centaur Eurytion drank too much at the wedding of Perithous, one the Lapitae or stone people. He attempted to abduct the bride of the wedding and underwent battle with the Lapitae. The idea in the myth is that too much wine makes one act outrageously and violent. The same passage is quoted in Athenaeus (14.613a) as an example of the effects of drinking. The speaker says before quoting the passage: “Many authorities, my friend Timocrates, refer to Dionysus as insane as a consequence of the fact that most people grow boisterous when they gulp down strong wine.”4 Another scene in the Odyssey (14.462–66) features the effects of wine. Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, tells a story to Eumaeus the swineherd and other herdsmen in the fields about the time when he was in the battlefield with Odysseus and needed to borrow a cloak. The group in Eumaeus’s hut have been drinking, and Odysseus, before he tells the story, says the following: Hear me now, Eumaeus, and all the rest of you, his men, while I tell a boasting tale; for the wine bids me, befooling wine, which sets one, even though he be

124

Chapter 6

very wise, to singing and soft laughter, and makes him stand up and dance, and sometimes brings forth a word which were better left unspoken.5

Odysseus claims that his drunken state of mind compels him to tell a long story. His motive is to connect himself to the legendary Odysseus and see how Eumaeus reacts. The idea in the passage is that wine makes even a wise person act foolishly and say things that he regrets. In Athenaeus, Homer and wine are discussed in book 1. In one section (1.10ef), the speaker claims that Homer showed the bad effects of wine in several scenes. The poet disparages drunkenness by representing it as the means by which the Cyclops, big as he is, is defeated by a tiny person (cf. Od. 9.515–16), as also in the case of the centaur Eurytion (Od. 21.295–302). And he represents the lions and wolves at Circe’s house as pursuing pleasure, but keeps Odysseus safe because he listens to what Hermes tells him (Od. 10.277ff); this is why nothing happens to him. He throws the drunken, dissolute Elpenor, on the other hand, off a roof (Od. 10.552–60). So too Antinoos, who tells Odysseus that (Od. 21.293) the sweet wine is doing you harm, did not himself avoid drinking; as a consequence, he was “done harm” and died still clutching his goblet (Od. 22.8–20). Homer also represents the Greeks as drunk when they sailed away from Troy and as quarreling because of that (Od. 3.136–50, esp. 139), as a result of which they perished.6

The speaker finds many examples of the dangers of drinking wine in the Odyssey. The Cyclops was conquered by wine. Circe tricked Odysseus’s crew with the temptation for wine, although Odysseus was not fooled. Elpenor dies by falling off a roof while being drunk. The Greeks were drunk when sailing away from conquered Troy. Wine appears in the epic poetry of Hesiod. In this passage from his lost work Ehoiai (fr. 239) the poet warns against using too much wine. The fragment may be found in Athenaeus (10.428c): Just as Dionysus gave men both pleasure and trouble. If someone drinks as much as he wants, the wine assaults him like a madman, and wraps his feet, hands, tongue, and mind in invisible bonds, and soft sleep welcomes him.7

Images of drunkenness will appear often in Greek and Roman narratives about wine. In this passage, the wine makes the person suffer madness and ultimately blackout. One was supposed to use wine in moderation and know the limits of intoxication.

Wine

125

ARCHAIC INTOXICATION Greek poetry from the Archaic Age brings us images of the symposium and views about intoxication.8 The poetry often depicts overindulgence as inappropriate behavior, but at the same time it encourages drinking and partying. Images of drunkenness are meant to exclude those behaving inappropriately, but there was a fine line. The archaic poet Alcaeus often writes about drinking wine and attending drinking parties. According to Athenaeus (10.430bd), he advocates drinking on all occasions, good and bad. Now everyone should get drunk and be forced to drink, since the fact is that Myrsilus is dead. One is supposed to swallow their troubles in wine and elevate their joyous occasions.9

Another poem from Alcaeus, encourages the participants to get drunk in the worst of times. In misfortune (fr. 335): We should not surrender our heart to troubles; for we’ll get nowhere by being miserable, Bucchis. The best remedy is to fetch some wine and get drunk.10

Wine promises relief from suffering by making one forget their troubles. The best way to grieve over someone’s death is by getting drunk. In another poem from Alcaeus (fr. 346), a heavy dose of wine is recommended. Let’s drink! Why are we waiting for the lamps? There’s only a sliver of daylight left. Take down the fancy large cups, sweet boy; for the son of Semele and Zeus gave human beings wine to help them forget their troubles. Mix it one-to-two, and pour it in the cup, filling it to the brim! Let the cups crowd against one another!11

The wine to water mixture is very strong, as Athenaeus points out, who quotes the poem. The poet asks for the large cups with the intent of becoming very intoxicated. Another poem from Alcaeus (fr. 333) testifies to the common side effect of wine. It makes people too honest and say things which they would not say while sober. Tzetzes, a grammarian from Byzantium times, quotes the poet and introduces him thus: “Drunk men reveal their secret thoughts. So Alcaeus says: for wine is a peep-hole into a man.”12 The idea is that wine reveals one’s most true but hidden feelings. In the archaic poet Theognis (971–72), we hear of drinking contests and prizes for drinking the most wine. “What’s the merit in gaining a wine-drinking

126

Chapter 6

prize? Often in fact a base man wins over one who is noble.”13 His poetry shows the audience good and bad behaviors at the symposium. If one wins the contest, then they did not practice moderation and are not behaving appropriately. Only men without good morals, which he calls base men, would win a drinking contest and reveal their low-class nature. Archaic Greek drinking parties were class-conscious occasions. Behaving correctly and not drinking too much were ways of showing one’s social worth and standing. WINE AS ARTISTIC INSPIRATION In Aristophanes’s Knights, there is a scene where unmixed wine is used to inspire an intricate plan against the politician Cleon. The comedy takes place during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Cleon came to power after the death of Pericles, who seemed to handle the war better. Cleon was disliked for his strategies for the war and Aristophanes attacks him in in several comedies. In this scene (Knights lines 82–114), two slaves are concocting a plan to overthrow Cleon and his influence over the populace, represented in the comedy by the character Demos. The slaves decide to get drunk to inspire their course of action. Second Slave: Let’s see then, what would be the most manly? Our best course is to drink bull’s blood: we should choose the death Themistocles chose. First Slave: God no, we should toast the Good Genie with neat wine instead! Maybe that way we might think up a good plan. Second Slave: Listen to him, neat wine! You’re always looking for an excuse to drink. But how could a tipsy person think up a good plan? First Slave: Oh, is that right? You babbling bucket of birch water! How dare you cast aspersions on the creative power of wine? Can you come up with anything more effective? Don’t you see, it’s when people drink that they get rich, they’re successful, they win lawsuits, they’re happy, they can help their friends. So quick, go in and fetch me a jug of wine; I want to water my wit and come up with something smart. Second Slave: Oh dear, what are you and your drink going to get us into? . . . First Slave: Come on then, slosh me the wine neat, a double libation. Second Slave: Here you are; now pour one for the Good Genie.

Wine

127

First Slave: Down the hatch, down goes the libation for the Pramnian Genie! Ah, Good Genie, that idea’s yours, not mine! Second Slave: Tell me, please, what idea? First Slave: Quick, go steal Paphlagon’s oracles and bring them out here while he’s still asleep. Second Slave: OK, but I’m afraid I may transform our Genie from Good to Bad. First Slave: Well then, I’ll just pass myself the jug, to water my wit and come up with something smart.14

They make a toast to the Good Genie or the Good Divinity. This toast would consist of unmixed wine and was only meant to occur at the beginning of the drinking party. The two slaves drink unmixed wine through the whole scene and become extremely drunk. They decide to read secret oracles hidden by Cleon, which foretell his downfall from power to a sausage dealer. The slaves recruit a sausage dealer to challenge and debate Cleon, and the sausage dealer wins the contest. In Athenaeus (Book 10 428f–430a, 44–47), there are references to artists using wine as inspiration for making art. These writers are imagined composing comedies and tragedies while intoxicated. Since I would say that Aeschylus (test. 117a) makes this mistake; because he— and not Euripides, as some authorities assert—was the first to bring the spectacle of drunks onto the tragic stage, given that he brings Jason’s companions onstage drunk in his Cabeiroi. The tragic poet attributed the same behavior to his heroes as he indulged in himself; at any rate, he used to write his tragedies drunk, which is why Sophocles (test. 52a) criticized him and said: “Aeschylus, even if you find the right words, you do so unconsciously,” according to Chamaeleon in his On Aeschylus (fr. 40a Wehrli). Those who claim that Epicharmus, followed by Crates in Neighbors, was the first to bring a drunk on stage, are similarly ill-informed. The lyric poet Alcaeus and the comic poet Aristophanes also produced their poetry while drunk, and many other men fought more brilliantly in war when drunk. In Epizypherian Locris, if anyone drank unmixed wine without a doctor requiring him to do so for medicinal purposes, the penalty was death; the law was proposed by Zaleucus.15

The comic and tragic poets wrote their pieces while drunk and introduced actors onstage acting drunk. Aeschylus and Euripides are portrayed as composing while intoxicated, as well as Aristophanes. The archaic poet Alcaeus also writes poetry while drunk, and drinking leads to bravery in war. Wine, then, could be used as artistic inspiration. The idea of the intoxicated poets indicates recreational usage of wine and drugs. The passage mentions a Greek city-state where drinking unmixed wine was banned and had severe

128

Chapter 6

punishments. Scenes of drinking and partying are common in comedy and sometimes in tragedy. The poetry of Alcaeus was meant to be performed at drinking parties. UNMIXED WINE Unmixed wine was extremely potent, and people drank it unmixed, even beyond customary toasts. In this poem from the archaic Greek poet Archilochus, an unwanted guest crashes the party and drinks an abundance of unmixed wine. The poem (fr. 124b) is preserved in Athenaeus (1.8b). Although you drink much unmixed wine, you neither contributed any money . . . And you came uninvited, as a friend would do; but your belly led your mind and heart astray into shamelessness.16

The party-crasher’s name is Pericles (not to be confused with the Athenian general). He has come to the drinking party uninvited, consumed an abundance of unmixed wine, and acted without shame or heavily intoxicated. In poetry about drunkenness, there is typically the assumption that the user acts shamelessly and offends the other partygoers. Toast of Unmixed Wine In Athenaeus (2.38c-e), we learn that the drinking party began with a toast of unmixed wine dedicated to a certain deity. Philochorus (FGrH 328 F 5b) says that Amphictyon the king of Athens learned how to mix wine from Dionysus and was the first person to do this. As a result, when people drank wine this way, they stood up straight, whereas before they were doubled over from drinking it undiluted. This is also why he established an altar of Upright Dionysus in the sacred precinct of the Seasons, because they cause the grapes to mature. Close to this he built an altar to the nymphs, to remind those who consume wine to mix it; and in fact the nymphs are said to be Dionysus’ nurses (e.g. h.Hom. 26.3–5). He also made it a custom that, after the food, we drink just enough unmixed wine to get a taste, as a demonstration of the Good Divinity’s power; and that, after that, the wine is drunk mixed and everyone has as much as he wants. And also that we pronounce the name of Zeus the Savior over the mixed wine, so that those who are drinking can learn the name and remember that, if they drink this way, their safety is assured.17

Here, the invention of mixing wine is considered. The mythological king set the tradition of toasting to the Good Divinity, assumingly Dionysus. The toast

Wine

129

would consist of unmixed wine to sample the potency of the wine. Another toast is made to Zeus the Savior because the god brings rain with which to dilute the wine. The ratio of water to wine would decide the level of intoxication during the drinking party. Another passage in Athenaeus (Book 15.693b-e) discusses the toasts made to the Good Divinity and Zeus the Savior. I’m also starting to nod off a bit myself! Since the bowl of unmixed wine dedicated to the Good Divinity totally staggered me when I emptied it, while the one dedicated to Zeus the Savior abruptly wrecked and drowned me as I was sailing along, you see. . . . Theophrastus says in his On Drunkenness (fr. 572 Fortenbaugh): As for the unmixed wine offered after dinner, which they identify as a toast in honor of the Good Divinity, they consume only a little, as if the taste was merely a reminder to them of how strong it is and of the god’s generosity; and they offer it once everyone is already full, so that as little as possible of it will be drunk. After they show their respects to him three times, they remove it from the table, as if they were begging the god to guarantee that they engage in no ugly behavior and that they feel no overwhelming desire to drink this, but receive only what is good and beneficial from him. Philochorus says in Book II of the History of Attica (FGrH 328 F 5a): At that point a custom was established that, after they ate, just enough unmixed wine was distributed to everyone to give them a taste of it and to put the Good Divinity’s power on display, and after that they drank it mixed. (Xenarchus in Twins, fr. 2)18

The passage begins with a quote from a comic poet, where the character has become too drunk from the first two toasts at the party. A lost treatise of Theophrastus is cited for the explanation behind making a toast to the Good Divinity. The toast was meant as a reminder of the strength of the wine. Three doses of unmixed wine would be used for the toast. The participants were supposed to drink only a small amount of it. If too much unmixed wine is consumed, the drinkers will become unruly and out of control. For the rest of the party, the wine would be consumed after being mixed. Invention of Mixing Wine A passage in Athenaeus (Book 15.675a–d) shares a myth about the invention of mixing wine. We are to imagine a time when wine was only used unmixed. The physician Philonides says in his On Perfumes and Garlands: After Dionysus introduced the grapevine to Greece from the area around the Red Sea, and many people misguidedly enjoyed unlimited quantities of wine and consumed it unmixed, some of them became delirious and began to act like madmen,

130

Chapter 6

while others grew drowsy and resembled corpses. When a group of them were drinking on the seashore, a sudden rainstorm broke up the party and filled their mixing bowl, which contained a small quantity of left-over wine, with water. After the sky cleared, they returned to the same place, and when they tasted the mixture, they derived a soothing, painless pleasure from it. As a consequence of this, the Greeks invoke the Good Divinity when unmixed wine is distributed at their dinner parties, as a way of honoring the deity—that is, Dionysus—who discovered it. And when they are offered the first cup of mixed wine after dinner, they call upon Zeus the Savior, since they regard him, in his capacity as marshaller of the storms, as responsible for the painless mixing that results from mingling (wine and water).19

The use of unmixed wine caused the drinkers to undergo madness or to fall deep asleep. The myth maintains that a party occurred outdoors and that it rained during the party. After the participants drank the diluted wine, the intoxication was more pleasurable. The reason for the toast to Zeus the Savior is in acknowledgment to the rain produced to dilute the wine. The second toast, of course, was diluted. Scythian Style The Scythians were thought to drink their wine unmixed and to party hard. The tribe also used cannabis for intoxication and was known for getting high on fumigations. The Greek image of Scythian intoxication goes back to Archaic times. The Scythians have been around since the early Bronze Age. This excerpt from Athenaeus (Book 10 427a–b) contains a fragment from the Archaic Greek poet Anacreon. But in Anacreon (PMG 356[a]) the mixture is one part wine to two parts water: Come on, slave—bring us a pot, so I can drink a toast without pausing to breathe, after I pour in ten ladles of water, followed by five of wine, letting me † violently † turn into a drunken madman.

And further on (PMG 356(b)) he refers to consuming unmixed wine as “Scythian drinking”: Come on—let’s not practice Scythian drinking any longer, while we’re consuming wine, with banging and shouting; instead, let’s drink a bit to the accompaniment of beautiful hymns. According to Herodotus in Book VI (84.1), the Spartans too claim that after their king Cleomenes spent time with some Scythians and took up drinking

Wine

131

unmixed wine, his drunkenness drove him crazy. And whenever the Spartans themselves want to drink particularly strong wine (akratesteron), they say that they are drinking Scythian style.20

The discussion concerns the appropriate mixture of wine to water. The point of the passage in Athenaeus is that one part wine to two parts water is very strong. This mixture causes the character in Anacreon’s poem to undergo mania and be too intoxicated. Another fragment from the Archaic poet shows Scythian style getting out of hand as the participants are imagined acting chaotically. The ruler of Sparta, Cleomenes, seems to always take his wine unmixed. In stories about Spartan culture, unmixed wine was to be avoided. Plutarch tells an anecdote in different places of his works which show that the Spartans made their helots drink unmixed wine. Helots were the slave class to the Spartan elites. This example comes from Plutarch’s Life of Demetrius (889) Accordingly, the ancient Spartans would put compulsion upon their helots at the festivals to drink much unmixed wine, and would then bring them into the public messes, in order to show their young men what it was to be drunk.21

The unmixed wine would make the helots act in embarrassing ways and teach a lesson to the youngsters about overindulgence. It is odd that Cleomenes would drink his wine so potent and in a way that was unacceptable in his society. It is possible that he had a high tolerance to the drugs and alcohol in the wine. Athenaeus will share stories about other famous rulers conducting their business while drunk. Another excerpt from Athenaeus (5.221ab) contains a reference to Scythian style. Ulpian, one of the speakers at the symposium, claims the participants have gotten too drunk. He says in the dialogue: My fellow-diners, it appears to me that you have been unexpectedly engulfed in a violent rush of words and drowned in unmixed wine. For a man who gulps down wine as a horse does water speaks Scythian, and unable to recognize the letter koppa ∗ ∗ ∗ He lies there, unable to speak, swimming in the wine-jar, asleep, like someone who consumes opium, says Parmenon of Byzantium (fr. 1, p. 237 Powell).22

Although unmixed wine was only used as a toast at the beginning of the drinking portion of the party, Ulpian implies that the participants have indulged in too much unmixed wine. Perhaps people drank the hard stuff as needed through the night. He says that the group has gotten sleepy and acts stupefied. The conversation before this scene concerned mythological Gorgons turning people into stone, and he accuses the crowd of now being

132

Chapter 6

stoned. The Scythian intoxication is intense for the user, who acts like a person on opium poppy. Ulpian hopes that the partygoers wake up and become more invigorated. WINE-INDUCED HALLUCINATION In a passage from Athenaeus (2.37b-e), wine is seen to have extreme psychotropic side effects in the form of hallucinations. The speaker describes the events at a house which came to be known as the trireme house. A trireme is an ancient boat. Timaeus of Tauromenium (FGrH 566 F 149) reports that there is a house in Acragas referred to as the Trireme for the following reason. Some young men were getting drunk inside; and their drunkenness made them so feverishly crazy that they thought they were sailing on a trireme and had run into a terrible storm at sea. They were so out of their minds that they started throwing all the furniture and bedding out of the house, thinking that they were throwing it into the sea because the pilot was telling them that the ship’s cargo needed to be jettisoned on account of the storm. And even though a crowd began to gather and steal the items being thrown out, the young men continued to act crazily. The next day the city’s chief officials came to the house, and a charge was issued against the young men, who were still seasick; when the magistrates questioned them, they responded that a storm had caused them trouble and forced them to jettison their excess cargo into the sea. When the officials expressed astonishment at their lunacy, one of the young men, who seemed in fact to be older than the others, said: “Triton sirs, I was so afraid, that I had thrown myself under the third course of rowing benches, since that seemed like the lowest part of the ship, and was lying there.” They therefore forgave them for their craziness, ordered them not to consume any more wine, and let them go; and the young men expressing their gratitude.23

The partygoers were drinking potent wine with psychoactive additives. The group underwent drug-induced madness for an extended amount of time and gained the attention of their neighbors and community. The people in the house threw their furniture and belongings into the streets. The men are described as young, so they are perhaps inexperienced with heavy intoxication. The drugs in the wine surely fueled the evening. The ruckus was loud enough for the neighbors to bring in the officials, which represents an ancient version of calling the cops on a rowdy party.

Wine

133

WINE AND INSANITY In Athenaeus, there are a few instances where Dionysus and wine are related to insanity. The emphasis in each poem and passage is that the user’s overindulgence and habitual use of wine causes worse side effects. In this excerpt (Book 10 429c), people’s abuse of wine is the cause of their insanity. Those who misunderstand the power of wine claim that Dionysus is responsible for people going insane, which is an extraordinarily blasphemous assertion. This is why Melanippides (PMG 760) said: They all came to despise water, despite having previously known nothing of wine; and very very soon some of them died, while others began to talk like lunatics.24

Melanippides’s poetry gives us insight into drinking practices during the Greek Archaic Age. The speaker claims that people blame Dionysus for their insanity, but then he quotes the poem from Melanippides. The poem indicates that people, after discovering wine, became addicted to using it unmixed. Some died from their drinking habits and others went insane. The theme in Archaic poetry is to drink moderately and avoid outrageous or embarrassing behavior. In this excerpt from Athenaeus (Book 10 440d–e), the speaker cites Plato’s Laws and a myth about the madness of Dionysus. And immediately after this he says (Lg. 672b): A legend and a rumor circulate quietly, to the effect that this god’s sanity was stripped from him by his stepmother Hera. This is why, when he punishes people, he forces them to act like bacchants and to engage in wild dancing of all kinds; he has accordingly given us wine for this very purpose.25

Wine causes insanity to teach its users a lesson about overindulgence. It is imagined that Hera punished Dionysus by making him insane, and the god shares that punishment with others. The idea is to drink responsibly. If one goes over the line, it is no longer fun, and things may go wrong. This section of Athenaeus (2.36bc) considers the spectrum of wine to water ratio versus levels of intoxication. (Adesp. com. fr. 101): Mnesitheus said that the gods introduced wine to mortals as the greatest good for those who use it properly, but as the opposite for anyone who lacks discipline; for it nourishes those who use it well and strengthens their souls and their bodies. They also made it very useful for medicine, because it can be mixed together with liquid drugs and helps the wounded. And in everyday get-togethers it makes those who drink it mixed and in moderate Amounts happy; but if you drink too much, it produces ugly behavior. If you consume it

134

Chapter 6

mixed one-to-one, it drives you crazy; and if you drink it with no water at all, it paralyzes your body.26

Strong mixtures of wine have unwelcome side effects, like insanity and blackout. The speaker (2.36c) quotes a fragment from the comic poet Eubulus (fr. *93) who has Dionysus say the following: Because I mix up only three bowls of wine for sensible people. One is dedicated to good health, and they drink it first. The second is dedicated to love and pleasure, and the third to sleep; wise guests finish it up and go home. The fourth bowl no longer belongs to me but to outrage. The fifth belongs to arguments; the sixth to wandering drunk through the streets; the seventh to black eyes; the eighth to the bailiff; the ninth to an ugly black humor; and the tenth to madness extreme enough to make people throw stones.27

The god only takes credit for the first three offerings of wine. The third round of drinks causes sleep and indicates an end to the drinking bout. Some people continue drinking, but this is out of the power of the god and rather in the power of nefarious forces like outrage, arguments, black eyes, etc. Madness is the last stage, and the drinker acts mentally ill (thus stones are thrown at him). The poet expresses the full gambit of intoxication from healthy to dangerous. In the same section (2.36d), the speaker quotes a fragment of the comic poet Epicharmus (fr. 146): (A.) † A sacrifice leads to a feast, and a feast leads to drinking. (B.) Sounds good to me, at least! (A.) But drinking leads to wandering the streets drunk, and wandering the streets drunk leads to acting like a pig, and acting like a pig leads to a lawsuit, and being found guilty leads to shackles, stocks, and a fine.28 The passage shows a similar progression where drinking wine digresses into madness and negative consequences. It ultimately leads to legal consequences. It is an ancient version of drink, drive, go to jail. OVERINDULGENCE OF WINE Drinking too much is a common theme in narrations about wine. This poem from the archaic poet Theognis (503–8) describes how it feels to be too drunk. My head is heavy with wine, Onomacritus, it overpowers me, I am no longer the manager of my judgement, and the room is going round and round. But, come,

Wine

135

let me stand and find out whether the wine has hold of my feet as well as the mind within me. I’m afraid that in my fortified state I may do something foolish and bring great disgrace upon me.29

The speaker cannot stand, and the room is spinning. He drank too much wine and is past the point of enjoyment. He is now prone to act foolishly. In this poem (467–96) by Theognis, the speaker is at the right level of intoxication. He writes at lines 474–78: But I’ll go home—I’ve had my limit of honey-sweet wine—and I’ll take thought for sleep that brings release from ills. I’ve reached the stage where the consumption of wine is most pleasant for a man, since I am neither sober nor too drunk.30

Toward the end of the poem, the speaker admits that only a person with self-control can make it all night without acting like a fool: One cup is a toast to friendship, another is set before you, another you offer as a libation to the gods, another you have as a penalty, and you don’t know how to say no. That man is truly the champion who after drinking many cups will say nothing foolish. If you stay by the mixing bowl, make good conversation, long avoiding quarrels with one another and speaking openly to one and all alike. In this way a symposium turns out to be not half bad.31

The penalty refers to drinking games, commonly played at the symposium. The idea was to keep the peace at the party and not be too intoxicated. In this poem from the archaic poet Theognis (477–86), found in Athenaeus (Book 10 428 b–e), the speaker is moderately intoxicated and warns about crossing the line. I have come like wine a man is delighted to drink; I am not the least bit sober, but neither am I too drunk. If someone drinks more than is appropriate, he is no longer in control of his thoughts and his mind; he makes foolish remarks that embarrass sober people, and his behavior is shameless when he is drunk, even if he was previously sensible and gentle. But since you understand this, do not drink excessive amounts of wine; get up and leave before you start feeling drunk, so that your stomach does not turn on you, as if you were a low-born day-laborer.32

The poet contains advice to the audience. When people drink too much wine, they lose control of themselves and embarrass themselves. The way to avoid over indulgence is to leave the party early, once you feel tipsy.

136

Chapter 6

Drinking as a Lifestyle In Athenaeus (10 436c-f), we see examples of people who drank every day, conducted business while drunk, overindulged at parties, and died from wine overdose. These people were famous for their constant use of wine. And in Book XXIII (FGrH 115 F 143), in his description of Charidemus of Oreus, whom the Athenians made a citizen, he says: Because he openly led a depraved existence, to the extent that he was constantly drinking and in a stupor, and he went so far as to seduce free women. He became so reckless that he attempted to ask the Olynthian city council for a boy who was good-looking and graceful, and who had happened to be taken prisoner along with Derdas of Macedon. Arcadion as well drank large amounts—it is unclear if this is Philip’s bitter enemy—as the epigram (anon. FGE 1624–7) copied by Polemon in his On Epigrams by City (fr. 79 Preller) makes clear: This tomb, which belongs to Arcadion of the many cups, was erected here beside the path that leads to the city by his sons Dorcon and Charmylus. The man died, sir, by gulping down six cups of strong wine. Alcetas of Macedon also drank large amounts, according to Aristus of Salamis (FGrH 143 F 3), as did Diotimus of Athens. The latter was nicknamed Funnel; because he would put a funnel in his mouth and drink non-stop as wine was poured into it, as a consequence of which he was nicknamed Funnel, according to Polemon (fr. 79).33

Charidemus lived a depraved life and was intoxicated at all times. Arcadion drank so much that he ultimately died. Diotimus used a funnel to chug wine and received a nickname because of the habit. Complete Drunks In Athenaeus (10.444e), we hear about people who drank all the time and were known for being total drunks. Hegesander of Delphi (fr. 20, FHG iv.417) refers to certain individuals as exoinoi (“complete drunks”), saying the following: Comon and Rhodophon, who were members of the political class in Rhodes, were exoinoi.34

In the passage we see the idea of rulers and elite classes being drunk all the time. They lived lavish lifestyles, which allowed for their extreme drinking habits.

Wine

137

Drunk Rulers In Book 10 of Athenaeus (435a before and after), the extreme drinking habits of Alexander the Great are covered. Alexander may have died from wine overdose. The Macedonian elites were known for their depravity and luxurious lifestyles. Alexander’s father conducted business, political affairs, and battles, while drunk. In this excerpt (10.435bd), we hear about Philip III, king of Macedonia. Alexander’s father Philip also liked to drink, according to Theopompus in Book XXVI of his History (FGrH 115 F 163). So too in another part of his History he writes (FGrH 115 F 282): Philip was manic and prone to rushing head-long into danger, in part because this was his nature, but in part because of his heavy drinking; for he consumed large amounts of wine and often went into battle drunk. And in Book LIII (FGrH 115 F 236), after describing what happened at Chaeronea and how Philip invited the Athenian ambassadors who came to see him to dinner, he says: As soon as they were gone, Philip summoned some of the members of his inner circle, and told them to fetch the pipe-girls, Aristonicus the citharode, Dorion the pipe-player, and the others who routinely drank with him; for Philip took people like this around with him everywhere, and had plenty of equipment ready for drinking parties and festivities. Because since he liked to drink and was personally undisciplined, he was surrounded by large numbers of smart-asses, musicians, and comedians. After he drank all night and became extremely intoxicated, he let everyone else leave and now, as day was breaking, wandered off drunk to visit the Athenian ambassadors.35

Philip traveled with a party entourage, as did Alexander. In the Battle of Chaeronea, Athens and the rest of the Greek nations lost their independence to the Macedonians. Philip celebrated after winning the battle and went to meet the Athenian magistrates, while still drunk from the party. In the next section, Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, is said to have been drunk for ninety days straight, according to testimony from Aristotle and Theopompus. In Athenaeus (Book 10.438d), Antiochus II is depicted as always being drunk. He was the king of the Seleucid Empire, a remnant of the conquests of Alexander the Great. The empire included Judea, Syria, and parts of the Middle East. The Seleucid Empire met its ends against the Romans, while it was trying to liberate Greece from Macedonian rule. Phylarchus in Book VI of his History (FGrH 81 F 6) claims that King Antiochus liked wine, and that he got drunk and slept a lot, and then in the evening would wake up again and drink some more. Antiochus did not do much business at all sober, he says, but instead did most of it drunk. This is why he had two assistants who managed his kingdom.36

138

Chapter 6

The ruler spends all of his time drunk and all business was conducted while under the influence. Another ruler of the same empire, Antiochus IV, was nicknamed the madman because of his drinking habits and behaviors. He was known to throw large parties and to attend the parties of commoners. This excerpt comes from the same section in Athenaeus (10.439a): Polybius in Book XXVI (1a) of his History refers to him as Epimanes (“the Madman”) rather than Epiphanes (“God Apparent”) because of his behavior; for not only did he associate with average people, but he drank with the least distinguished strangers who were visiting the country.37

He is described as constantly drunk and wandering around cities, making embarrassing scenes. His behavior was not thought to be fit for a king. Strong rulers, Roman emperors for instance, were often depicted as living deranged and depraved lives, constantly having a party. Drunk Nations In Athenaeus (Book 10.442c-d), the inhabitants of certain nations are thought to be filled with drunks. Phylarchus in Book VI (FGrH 81 F 7) (says) that because the inhabitants of Byzantium guzzle wine, they live in the bars and rent out their own bedrooms, wives and all, to foreigners, and cannot stand to hear a war-trumpet even in their dreams. This is why, when they were being attacked at one point and failed to show any courage in defending their walls, their general Leonides ordered bars to be set up under canopies on top of the walls, and even then they barely stopped deserting their positions, according to Damon in his On Byzantium (FGrH 389 F 1). Menander in The Arrhephoros or The Pipe-Girl (fr. 66): Byzantium gets all the merchants drunk. We drank all night long because of you—and awfully strong wine, it seems to me! At any rate, I’m getting up with four heads.38

The nation is known for its constant drunkenness. The military had to supply wine stations or bars for soldiers so that they would stay and fight in battles. The comic poet Menander has a character share a story about staying in Byzantium. Everyone, who hosted him, was drunk and he woke up with a hangover.

Wine

139

Drinking Contests Drinking games and contests were common at symposium and other settings. Flinging the dregs of wine, known as kottabos, is one game. In this passage from Pliny (14.140), people compete in drinking contests to see who can drink the most wine. Then again, think of the drinking matches! Think of the vessels engraved with scenes of adultery, as though tippling were not enough by itself to give lessons in licentiousness! Thus wine-bibbing is caused by license, and actually a prize is offered to promote drunkenness—heaven help us, it is actually purchased. One man gets a prize for tipsiness on condition of his eating as much as he has drunk; another drinks as many cups as are demanded of him by a throw of the dice. Then it is that greedy eyes bid a price for a married woman, and their heavy glances betray it to her husband; then it is that the secrets of the heart are published abroad: some men specify the provisions of their wills, others let out facts of fatal import, and do not keep to themselves words that will come back to them through a slit in their throat—how many men having lost their lives in that way! And truth has come to be proverbially credited to wine. Meantime, even should all turn out for the best, drunkards never see the rising sun, and so shorten their lives.

Overindulgence of wine or unmixed wine was a deadly game. The contests make the participants too intoxicated and things get out of hand. The passage ends with the image of a drunkard whose life is shortened because of a lifestyle of drinking.39 In Athenaeus (10.437a–f), Alexander the Great holds a funeral party, which includes massive drinking contests. Chares of Mytilene in his History Involving Alexander (FGrH 125 F 19), after describing how the Indian philosopher Calanus threw himself onto a heaped-up pyre and died, says that Alexander held athletic competitions and a musical contest in the singing of praise-songs at his tomb. Because the Indians love wine, he claims, he also held a contest in drinking it unmixed; first prize was a talent, second prize was 30 minas, and third prize was 10. 35 of those who drank the wine died on the spot from a chill, and another six did so after lingering briefly in their tents. The man who drank the most and took the prize consumed four pitchers of unmixed wine and was awarded the talent, and survived for four days; his name was Promachus.40

Thirty-five people died of wine overdose in the drinking contest. The winner, after drinking four jugs of undiluted wine, died after four days. Alexander the Great was known to have drinking parties during his famous campaign.

140

Chapter 6

DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT Alexander died in Babylon after returning from his long conquest, which reached into India.41 When his campaign ended, there was a long party and constant celebration. It was during this time that Alexander fell ill and died. The ancient narrations disagree about the exact circumstances of his death. In Athenaeus (10.434b), he died of wine overdose. Alexander took the cup and made a concerted effort to empty it, but could not manage the feat, and instead collapsed on his pillow and let the cup slip from his hands. He fell sick and died as a consequence, says Ephippus, because Dionysus was angry at him, since he besieged the god’s native city of Thebes. Alexander used to drink heavily, to the extent that he sometimes got so drunk that he slept for two days and nights straight.42

Alexander and Proteas have an informal drinking contest to see who can toast the largest amount of wine to one another. Alexander is unable to finish the final toast and falls ill. The writer imagines that the gods punish Alexander because of the way he treated the Greeks. These contests and parties would have occurred during the ongoing victory celebration of his campaign. In Plutarch’s Life of Alexander (section 76), he comes down with a fever after a night of drinking and dies almost a month later from prolonged fever. NOTES 1. See Ruck 1992 and 2015 and Rinella 2011 for a discussion. Also see McGovern 2003, 2009. 2. See Skinner 2005 for erotic entertainment at the symposium. 3. Trans. Murray 1919, vol. 2, 330–33. 4. Trans. Olson 2011, vol. 7, 98–99. 5. Trans. Murray 1919, vol. 2, 70–71. 6. Trans. Olson 2007, vol. 1, 56–59. 7. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 42–43. 8. See Papakonstantinou for a discussion. See Skinner 2005 for a discussion of the archaic symposium. For imagery of the symposium, see Lissarrague 1990. 9. Ibid. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 54–55. 10. Ibid.[AQ6] 11. Ibid. 12. Trans. Campbell 1982, vol. 1, 372–73. 13. Trans. Gerber 1999, 314–15. 14. Trans. Henderson 1998, 238–43. 15. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 44–47. Compare Athenaeus 1.22b.

Wine

16. Trans. Olson 2007, vol. 1, 40–41. 17. Olson 2007, vol. 1, 218–21. 18. Olson 2012, vol. 8, 152–57. 19. Ibid., 52–55. 20. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 36–47. 21. Trans. Perrin 1920, vol. 9, 4–5. 22. Trans. Olson 2007, vol. 2, 556–57. 23. Trans. Olson 2007, vol. 1, 212–15. 24. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 48–49. 25. Ibid., 102–3. 26. Trans. Olson 2007, vol. 1, 202–5. 27. Ibid., 204–5. 28. Ibid., 206–7 29. Trans. Gerber 1999, 244–45. 30. Ibid., 242–43 31. Ibid. 32. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 42–45. 33. Ibid., 82–83. 34. Ibid., 124–25 35. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 78–81. 36. Ibid., 94–95. 37. Ibid., 96–97. 38. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 112–13. 39. Trans. Rackham 1945, vol. 4, 278–79. 40. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 86–91. 41. See Mayor 2014 for a discussion of Alexander’s death. 42. Trans. Olson 2009, vol. 5, 74–75.

141

Chapter 7

Other Settings of Intoxication and Modern Biotech Applications

Ancient people used psychotropic drugs for leisure and inspiration, including self-medication and spiritual growth. Ancient medicine was ready to treat overdoses on these substances. Not every overdose was accidental nor in a medical setting. Psychotropic extracts were added to the wine at the drinking party and sold at the market by drug dealers. People drank wine and used drugs in different settings. The sources do not always show where or in what situation someone might take doses of mandrake or opium poppy. They address the behavior because it was common in their everyday lives, and it stood out as inappropriate for a social drinking event. The practice of magic gives one setting for intoxication. Many spells are recreational and meditative in their outcomes. They demand the user spend a lot of time using intoxicants and communing with the deities. It may have been one’s lifestyle choice to use intoxicants everyday under the guise of magic. Other settings mentioned in the excerpts include artistic inspiration for making art, writing literature, coming up with a plan, or making philosophical orations. The location would be wherever the user worked and needed inspiration. Some ancient people drank wine and used intoxicants as a lifestyle choice, i.e., everyday usage. Places and situations are missing where people were actively using psychotropic drugs. It is assumed that they used them regardless of the warnings from literature and society. We do not have access to these situations of pro-psychotropic drug usage because they were likely popular in the lower classes and other groups whose voices we have lost. In the city of Rome and port towns of the Roman Empire, where merchants needed hospitality, there are taverns, inns, and brothels. Similar port towns may be found in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic Worlds. Travel and tourism 143

144

Chapter 7

in the ancient world were rather limited to the elites. The exception of course would be sailors, soldiers, and merchants, as well as the slaves accompanying these people. In the poetry of Catullus (first century BCE), we see glimpses into the culture of these inns and taverns, as well as the party culture. Catullus was an elite citizen. He and his beloved Lesbia both played in the party scene of Rome. She was likely married. They ran in the party hookup culture of Rome. In poem 37, after Lesbia dumps Catullus, he spies her hanging out with other men at an inn, getting drunk: Randy Inn and all you “Inn-attendants.” Ninth pillar from the Brothers with Felt Halts, D’you reckon you’re the only ones with tools, The only ones allowed to fuck the girls And the rest of us are stinking goats? Or, since you clots are sitting in a queue One or two hundred strong, d’you think I wouldn’t Dare stuff two hundred sitting tenants at once? Well, think again. For I shall scrawl the Inn’s Whole frontage for you with phallic graffiti— Because a girl who ran from my embrace, Loved by me as no other will be loved, For whom a great war has been fought by me, Has settled here. With her the good and great Are all in love and what’s more (shame upon her!)

ALL THE SHODDY BACKSTREET ADULTERERS . . .1 The inn and tavern were places where people used intoxicants and hooked up. Roman culture did not approve of such behaviors. Marriage was the goal of courtship. The lower classes and noncitizens could break the rules and live a different lifestyle. They had less social standing to lose from societal judgment. The elites went into the cities and participated in the party scene. Catullus’s poetry captures some of this culture. The Roman poet Horace (first century BCE) also describes a party scene in the city of Rome. His satires consider everyday life in Rome with a view to social criticism. In satire 1.2, the poet focuses on the city of Rome and its hookup culture. The theme is that Roman men chase after married women. The poem describes an atmosphere of partying and seeking out sexual partners. The Roman poet Ovid (first century CE) wrote during the Roman Empire. His elegies cover the party scene in Rome and his affairs with a married

Other Settings of Intoxication and Modern Biotech Applications

145

women nicknamed Corinna. Ovid also wrote a poem on how to hook up in the city. The poem is called the Ars Amatoria or the Art of Love. According to his advice, people could find hookups all throughout the city, including the horse races and circus performances. In the Roman Empire, writers like Petronius, Martial, and Juvenal wrote about the party scene and hookup culture in Rome. It is the backdrop of many of their poems. People went to the city looking to party. Rome and cities in the empire had plenty of places to drink wine and use drugs. There were wine bars, taverns, and inns. One may study party culture through the epigrams of Martial. A drug dealer named Cosmus appears in several of his poems. Cosmus, according to the lore, operated a stall in the market and was famous for his potent unguents. The poet invokes Cosmus’s wares to indicate extreme luxury and a party lifestyle. In epigram 1.87, Martial satirizes a woman named Fescennia because she goes to Cosmus’s shop after a long night of drinking and buys pastilles to cover up her bad breath. The poet writes that the medicated breath mints make the smell of the morning booze-breath worse. Pastilles are the origin of modern-day candy. In its ancient form, a pastille was a lozenge for administering medication. Other pastilles were tiny packets for burning (fumigation). In epigram 3.82, Martial warns the audience about dining with Zoilus. The host is overindulgent in luxury but does not share it with his guests. The poet describes him at one point as being hoarse from using jars of Cosmus, which contain intoxicants. It is a reference to Zoilus overusing a fumigator. The hoarseness (fuscus) may be a result of smoking a pastille or inhaling rich unguent. In epigram 3.55, Martial pokes fun at a party girl who smells like Cosmus’s shop. In epigram 12.65, the poet considers a present for a girl who spent the night with him. A pound of Cosmus’s stuff is one option, but the girl asks for a jar of wine. In epigram 11.18, Martial complains about the tiny garden in the property given to him by Lupus. It does not contain the plants known to be sold at Cosmus’s shop. In epigram 14.110, there is an inscription for a drinking flask which advertises its potency as coming from Cosmus’s supply. In the ancient Greek world, a similar drug culture may be seen in the literature surrounding courtesan culture, for instance in Middle and New Comedy of the Hellenistic world.2 Courtesans would supply the party for the paying gentleman and his guests. Some classical scholarship is attempting to understand the leisure culture of the underclass that surrounded taverns, inns, and brothels.3 The research compares archaeological ruins of these places to literary references to courtesan culture. This erotic literary genre flourished throughout the ancient

146

Chapter 7

Greek and Roman world. It is assumed that there was a real party culture mirroring it. The research looks at different time periods during which tavern or courtesan culture flourished. Classical Athens had its courtesan and brothel culture, as seen in comedy and court orations, as well as other places. Hellenistic Greece, for instance the city of Alexandria, had places with dense populations of underclass. The city of Rome and other cities during the empire were known for leisure and entertainment. The researchers are looking at tavern, inn, brothel, and courtesan culture in maritime cities along the coast and islands of the Mediterranean Sea. Evidence points to the existence of special areas for taverns, inns, and brothels, which entertained sailors, actors, musicians, slaves, and other underclass people. In these areas, elites would attend, but they would also be called out by their political enemies for such associations and lifestyles. Because these places featured the underclass, there is no written testimony of their workings. Graffiti, archaeological ruins, and literary references only give a partial picture. The woman named Anticyra, mentioned in chapter 3, who inherited a large amount of hellebore, would be an example of such a culture. In that passage, there is speculation that she drank hellebore with men and had relationships with them. She inherited a large quantity of the substance, which could be sold and used to pay rent. It is likely that there was a drug element to this underclass tavern maritime culture. Taverns featured alcoholic drinks which were mixed with psychotropic drugs. People went to taverns and brothels and used intoxicants. Underclass people without citizenship or legitimacy may have found acceptance in these communities or worked in them. If one needed a large amount of hellebore for a party or for something nefarious, perhaps the tavern or brothel would be the place to search it out. Nicholas et al. write about the variety of establishments which may have made up leisure culture. There were thermopolia (generally street-level hot wine or hot soup kitchens), stabula (inns furnished with animal stables), cauponae (taverns or inns where evening entertainment was common), tabernae (a term with many shades of meaning, . . . ), popinae (cookshops or restaurants commonly associated with prostitution), ganeae (houses of prostitution thinly veiled as restaurants), and lupanaria (public houses of prostitution, in most cases officially recognized and sanctioned).4

There was an underclass of laborers, shopkeepers, and poor people who used inns and taverns as their mainstay and for their lodging and food. The authors argue that in these types of neighborhoods and in maritime

Other Settings of Intoxication and Modern Biotech Applications

147

communities, with similar services, there was a high likelihood of nefarious, black-market dealings. Leisure culture flourished in large centers like Rome, Alexandria, and Athens, as well as smaller maritime port cities. The authors cite Plutarch’s writing about the exile of the tyrant Dionysius II of Syracuse to Corinth. It seems that he spent his final years immersing himself in the tavern culture, or at least the quote gives us a view into the culture. The authors write, According to Plutarch, when the tyrant Dionysius II of Syracuse was expelled from that city in 344 B.C., he fled to Corinth, where he took up residence as a schoolmaster. Plutarch reports that in his final years Dionysius could be seen languishing at the food markets of Corinth, sitting in a perfumer’s shop, drinking diluted wine in the taverns, bandying jokes in public with prostitutes, correcting music girls in their singing or earnestly arguing with them about songs of the theaters or the melodies of hymn.5

They cite a passage from Plautus’s The Cheat, mentioned earlier in chapter 3. In the scene (lines 170–227), the pimp Ballio orders his prostitutes to go out and attempt to receive gifts from butchers, grain traders, oil dealers, and elites. Ballio plans to celebrate his birthday. In the comedy, it is understood that a variety of travelers would enter the port town every day. This leisure culture, which included elements of business tourism, existed all over the Mediterranean. The authors make a list of types who may frequent the maritime leisure cultures. Traveling merchants would be the main client of these communities, because of the amount of expendable money they may have for journeys. Sailors as well would be important clients. The list also includes criminals, pirates, runaway slaves, local laborers, prostitutes and pimps, lower-class workers, like barbers or shopkeepers, tavern and bar workers, and finally elites looking for action. There is more work and research to be done in order to fully understand this party culture. MODERN BIOTECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHEDELIC MOLECULES In the ancient world, these psychotropic plants were used to treat mental symptoms, including depression, grief, suicide, insanity, and madness. The ancient mindset was to either put the patient to sleep, in order to calm them down, or to put the patient into another mental state, in order to negate the earlier mindset. The job of the doctor was to calm them down using different methods and return them to a normal state of mind.

148

Chapter 7

In modern-day biotechnology, there is a growing trend of using psychotropic drugs to treat mental symptoms like PTSD, severe depression, anxiety, grief, terminal diagnoses, and other traumas, which occur from neuropathway displacement. Pharmaceutical companies are running human trials and gaining government patents for treating mental symptoms with mind-altering drugs. The results have shown themselves to be very effective. Pharmaceutical companies are modifying potent psychotropics like LSD, DMT, psilocybin, MDMA, and ketamine so that the drugs may be used in a therapeutic clinical setting. The modified molecules allow for quicker onset of effects and shorter duration. Some molecules will allow the mind effects but not the visual ones. The patient takes a medical dose of the drug and undergoes a type of therapy with the counselor or by themselves with supervision. The point of the therapy is to help the person become more accepting and be at peace with death or to process debilitating traumatic experiences. Processing these memories in a psychotropic mindset allows for the person to ultimately repair the neuropathway system, which causes the ongoing trauma-related mental symptoms. The patient may process the traumatic memories without the associated feelings. Traumatic events tend to cause neuropathway growth into the fight-orflight part of the brain. When the patient is later triggered into the trauma memory, the fight-or-flight center is activated. This is one model used to approach causation and treatment of mental symptoms. Repairing the neuropathway containing the trauma memories causes the associated mental symptoms to disappear and become unproblematic. Clinical studies are beginning to show that people who undergo the therapy are able to overcome severe mental symptoms permanently. Companies conducting this research include Enveric Biosciences, Compass Pathways, Mind Medicine, and Cybin. These companies are developing molecules and methods of treatment. It is interesting to note that the ancient world had similar applications. NOTES 1. Trans. Knox and McKeown 2013, 100–1. 2. See Faraone et al 2006 for discussions about courtesan culture. 3. Nicholas et al. 2008. 4. Ibid., 217. 5. Ibid., 221.

Bibliography

Adams, F., trans. 1972 (1856). The Extant Works of Aretaeus, The Cappadocian. Boston: Milford House Inc. Arata, L. 2004 “Nepenthes and Cannabis in Ancient Greece.” Janus Head 7(1): 34–49. Arihan, O., S. Arihan, and A. Touwaide. 2014. “The Case Against Socrates and His Execution,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 1, edited by P. Wexler, 69–80. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Arnott, W., trans. 1997. Menander. Heros. Theophoroumene. Karchedonios. Kitharistes. Kolax. Koneiazomenai. Leukadia. Misoumenos. Perikeiromene. Perinthia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Babbitt, F., trans. 1928. Plutarch. Moralia, Volume II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1936. Plutarch. Moralia, Volume V. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Beck, L., trans. 2005. Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus De materia medica. Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann. Becker, H. 2021. “Caveat Emptor: The Perils of Shopping for Medical Products in the Ancient Marketplace.” Mouseion, Series III, vol. 18, 321–49. Betz, H, ed. 1992. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bremmer, Jan. 2002. The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol. London: Routledge. Burkert, W. 1987 Ancient Mystery Cults. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press. Bury, R., trans. 1933. Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Butrica, J. 2010. “The Medical Use of Cannabis among the Greeks and Romans.” In The Handbook of Cannabis Therapeutics from Bench to Bedside, edited by E. Russo and F. Grotenhermen, 23–42. New York: Routledge. Campbell, D., trans. 1982. Sappho, Alcaeus. Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carod-Artal, F. 2013. “Psychoactive Plants in Ancient Greece.” Neurosciences and History 1 (1): 28–38.

149

150

Bibliography

Cilliers, L., and F. Retief. 2014. “Poisons, Poisoners, and Poisoning in Ancient Rome,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 1, edited by P. Wexler, 127–35. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Clement, P., and H. Hoffleit, trans. 1969. Plutarch. Moralia, Volume VIII: Table-Talk, Books 1–6. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clinton, K. 2004. “Epiphany in the Eleusinian Mysteries.” Illinois Classical Studies 29: 85–109. ———. 2007. “The Mysteries of Demeter and Kore” in D. Ogden, ed., A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 342–56. Collins, D. 2009. Magic in the Ancient Greek World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Cosmopoulos, M. B. 2015. Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dafni, A., C. Blanché, S. Khatib, T. Petanidou, B. Aytaç, E. Pacini, E. Kohazurova, A. Geva‑Kleinberger, S. Shahvar, Z. Dajic, H. Klug, and G. Benítez. 2011. “In Search of Traces of the Mandrake Myth: The Historical, and Ethnobotanical Roots of Is Vernacular Names,” Journal of Ethnobotany and Ethnomedicine 17(1): 68. Deferrari, R., trans. 1930. Basil. Letters, Volume III: Letters 186–248. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Duffy, J., ed. 1992. Michaelis Pselli philosophica minora. Leipzig: Teubner. Einarson, B., and G. Link, trans. 1990. Theophrastus. De Causis Plantarum, Volume III: Books 5–6. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Emlyn-Jones, C., and William Preddy, trans. 2013. Plato. Republic, Volume I: Books 1–5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2013. Plato. Republic, Volume II: Books 6–10. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Faraone, C. 2001. Ancient Greek Love Magic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Faraone, C., and L. McClure, eds. 2006. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Forster, E., and E. Heffner, trans. 1955. Columella. On Agriculture, Volume III: Books 10–12. On Trees. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Funayama, S., and G. Cordell. 2015. Alkaloids: A Treasury of Poisons and Medicines. London: Academic Press. Garnsey, Peter. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Gerber, D., trans. 1999. Archilochus, Semonides, Hipponax. Greek Iambic Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1999. Tyrtaeus, Solon, Theognis, Mimnermus. Greek Elegiac Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gow, A., and A. Scholfield, trans. 1953. Nicander The Poems and Poetical Fragments. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. http:​//​attalus​.org​/poetry​ /nicander​.html. Graser, E. R. 1940. “A Text and Translation of the Edict of Diocletian.” In An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome Volume V: Rome and Italy of the Empire, edited by T. Frank, 305–421. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bibliography

151

Griffith, R. 2019. “Cenabis Bene (Catullus 13): Host for Real, or Just Blowing Smoke?” Mouseion, Series III, vol. 16, 161–68. Hanson, J., trans. 1989. Apuleius. Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Volume II: Books 7–11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Harmon, A., trans. 1913. Lucian Vol I. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1915. Lucian Vol 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harris-McCoy, D., trans. 2012. Artemidorus Oneirocritica: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Helmreich, G., ed. 1923. “Galeni de alimentorum facultatibus libri iii,” in Corpus medicorum Graecorum, vol. 5.4.2. Leipzig: Teubner. Henderson, J., trans. 1998. Aristophanes. Clouds. Wasps. Peace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1998. Aristophanes. Acharnians. Knights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hett, W., trans. 1957. Aristotle. On the Soul. Parva Naturalia. On Breath. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957. Hicks, R., trans. 1925. Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume I: Books 1–5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. Hillman, D. 2008. Chemical Muse. New York: St Martin’s Press. Hobenreich, E., and G. Rizzelli. 2015. “Poisoning in Ancient Rome: The Legal Framework, the Nature of Poisons, and Gender Stereotypes,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 2, edited by P. Wexler, 42–51. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Hodge, H., trans. 1927. Cicero. Pro Lege Manilia. Pro Caecina. Pro Cluentio. Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hoffman, M. 2015. “Entheogens (Psychedelic Drugs) and the Ancient Mystery Religions,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 2, edited by P. Wexler, 126–35. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Hort, A., trans. 1916. Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants, Volume II: Books 6–9. On Odours. Weather Signs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ilan, D. 2022. “The Ring-Kernoi and Psychotropic Substances,” in Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experiences in the Ancient World, edited by D. Stein, S. Costello, and K. Foster, 173–88. London: Routledge. Irwin, M. Eleanor. 2006. “Flower Power in Medicine and Magic: Theophrastus’ Response to the Rootcutters.” Mouseion 6: 423–37. Johnston, I., trans. 2020. Galen. On Temperaments. On Non-Uniform Distemperment. The Soul’s Traits Depend on Bodily Temperament. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2018. Galen. Hygiene, Volume II: Books 5–6. Thrasybulus. On Exercise with a Small Ball. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Johnston, I., and G. Horsley, trans. 2011. Galen. Method of Medicine, Volume III: Books 10–14. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jones, C., trans. 2017. Apuleius. Apologia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

152

Bibliography

Jones, W., trans. 1951. Pliny. Natural History, Volume VI: Books 20–23. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1963. Pliny. Natural History, Volume VIII: Books 28–32. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jones, W., and C. Andrews, trans. 1956. Pliny. Natural History, Volume VII: Books 24–27. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956. Jones‐Lewis, M. 2016. “Pharmacy.” In A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome, vol. 1, edited by Georgia L. Irby, 402–17. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Kaster, R., trans. 2011. Macrobius. Saturnalia, Volume I: Books 1–2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Knox, P., and J. McKeown. 2013. Oxford Anthology of Roman Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kovacs, D., trans. 2003. Euripides. Bacchae. Iphigenia at Aulis. Rhesus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kühn, C., ed. 1821–1833. Claudii Galeni opera omnia. Leipzig: Teubner. ———. 1830 (1965). “Pseudo-Galenus Med., Definitiones medicae.” in Claudii Galeni opera omnia, vol. 19. Leipzig: Teubner. Lake, J. 2019. “The Near-death Experience (NDE) as an Inherited Predisposition: Possible Genetic, Epigenetic, Neural and Symbolic Mechanisms.” Medical Hypotheses 126 (2019) 135–48. Lamb, W. R. M. trans. 1924. Plato. Laches. Protagoras. Meno. Euthydemus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lattimore, R., trans. 1964, 2011. The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lissarrague, F. 2014 (1990). The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual. Translated by A. Szegedy-Maszak. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lloyd-Jones, H., trans. 1994. Sophocles. Antigone. The Women of Trachis. Philoctetes. Oedipus at Colonus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1996. Sophocles Fragments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Luck, G. 2006. Arcana Mundi. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Maidment, K., trans. 1941. Antiphon, Andocides. Minor Attic Orators, Volume I: Antiphon. Andocides. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Marchant, E., and O. Todd, trans. 2013. Xenophon. Memorabilia. Oeconomicus. Symposium. Apology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mayor, A. 2014. “Alexander the Great: A Questionable Death.” In History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 1, edited by P. Wexler 52–59 Waltham, MA: Academic Press. ———. 2015. “Chemical and Biological Warfare in Antiquity,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 2, edited by P. Wexler, 9–20. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. McGovern, Patrick E. 2009. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bibliography

153

———. 2003. Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Merlin, M. 2003. “Archaeological Evidence for the Tradition of Psychoactive Plant Use in the Old World.” Economic Botany 57.3: 295–323. Murray, A., trans. 1924. Homer. Iliad, Volume I: Books 1–12. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1919. Homer. Odyssey, Volume II: Books 13–24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nelson, Max. 2005. A Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. New York: Routledge. Nutton, Vivian. 1985. “The Drug Trade in Antiquity,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 78: 138–45. Ogden, D. 2002. Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olson, S. Douglas, trans. 2006–2012. Athenaeus The Learned Banqueters, Vols. 1–8 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Papakonstantinou, Z. 2012. “A Delight and a Burden: Wine and Wine-Drinking in Archaic Greece.” Ancient Society, vol. 42: 1–32. Perrin, B., trans. 1920. Plutarch. Lives, Volume IX: Demetrius and Antony. Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Potter, P., trans. 1995. Hippocrates. Places in Man. Glands. Fleshes. Prorrhetic 1–2. Physician. Use of Liquids. Ulcers. Haemorrhoids and Fistulas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Race, W., trans. 2009. Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rackham, H. trans. 1945. Pliny. Natural History, Volume IV: Books 12–16. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1950. Pliny. Natural History, Volume V: Books 17–19. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ramoutsaki, I., H. Askitopoulou, E. Konsolaki. 2002. “Pain relief and sedation in Roman Byzantine texts: Mandragoras officinarum, Hyoscyamos niger and Atropa belladonna,” International Congress Series 1242: 43–50. Rauh, N., M. Dillon, and T. McClain. 2008. “Ochlos Nautikos: Leisure Culture and Underclass Discontent in the Roman Maritime World.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volumes 6: 197–242. http:​//​www​.jstor​.org​/ stable​/40379303. Richardson, N. 1974. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rinella, M. 2011. Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Rolfe, J. C. trans. 1914. Suetonius. Lives of the Caesars, Volume I. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Rosen, R. M. 1987. “Hipponax fr. 48 Dg. and the Eleusinian Kykeon.” American Journal of Philology 108: 416–26.

154

Bibliography

Ruck, C. 2005. “Gods and Plants in the Classical World.” In Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline, edited by Richard Evans Schultes and Siri von Reis, 131– 43. Portland, OR: Dioscorides Press. ———. 2014. “Aristophanes’s Parody of Socrates as a Pothead and the Spartan Cult of the Wolf.” In Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances: Chemical Paths to Spirituality and to God, edited by J. Harold Ellens, 73–92. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO Press. ———. 2015. “Entheogens in Ancient Times,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 2, edited by P. Wexler, 116–25. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Russo, Ethan. 2004. “History of Cannabis as a Medicine.” In The Medicinal Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids, edited by G. W. Guy, B. A. Whittle, and P. J. Robson, 1–16. London: Pharmaceutical. ———. 2005. “Cannabis in India: Indian Lore and Modern Medicine.” In Cannabinoids as Therapeutics: Milestones in Drug Therapy, edited by R. Mechoulam, 1– 22. Basel, Switzerland: Birkauser Verlag. ———. 2007. “History of Cannabis and Its Preparations in Saga, Science and Sobriquet.” Chemistry & Biodiversity 4: 2624–48. ———. 2014. “The Pharmacological History of Cannabis.” In Handbook of Cannabis, edited by Roger G. Pertwee, 23–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russo, E., and F. Grotenhermen, eds. 2010. The Handbook of Cannabis Therapeutics from Bench to Bedside. New York: Routledge. Rusten, J., and I. Cunningham, trans. 2003. Theophrastus, Herodas, Sophron. Characters. Herodas: Mimes. Sophron and Other Mime Fragments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Samorini, G. 2022. “Psychoactive Plants in the Ancient World,” in Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experiences in the Ancient World, edited by D. Stein, S. Costello, and K. Foster, 73–89. London: Routledge. Sandbach, F., trans. 1969. Plutarch. Moralia, Volume XV: Fragments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Scarborough, J. 1982. “Roman Pharmacy and Eastern Drug Trade” Pharmacy in History 24: 135–43. ———. 1991. “The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots” In Magika Hiera, edited by C. Faraone and D. Obbink, 138–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 1995. “The Opium Poppy in Hellenistic and Roman Medicine.” In Drugs and Narcotics in History, edited by R. Porter and M. Tuech, 4–23. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1996. “Drugs and Medicines in the Roman World,” Expedition 38(2): 38–52. ———. 2006. “Drugs and Drug Lore in the Time of Theophrastus, Folklore, Magic, Botany, Philosophy and the Rootcutters,” Acta classica 49: 1–30. ———. 2010. “Mandrake in Ancient Surgery” Unpublished, available on academia.edu ———. 2012. “Thornapple in Graeco-Roman Pharmacology” Classical Philology, 107 (2012), 247–55.

Bibliography

155

Skinner, M. 2005. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers. Sommerstein, A., trans. 2009. Aeschylus. Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliants. Prometheus Bound. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Spencer, W., trans. 1935. Celsus. On Medicine, Volume I: Books 1–4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stein, D., S. Costello, and K. Foster, eds. 2022. Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World. London: Routledge. Storey, I., trans. 2011. Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume II: Diopeithes to Pherecrates. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Strassler, R., and A. Purvis, trans., eds. 2007. The Landmark Herodotus The Histories. New York: Pantheon Books. Sumler, A. 2017. “Ingesting Magic: Ecstatic States and Ingredients in the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri.” Arion 25(1): 111–38. ———. 2018. Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Totelin, Lawrence. 2009. Hippocratic Recipes: Oral and Written Transmissions of Pharmacological Knowledge in Fifth- and Fourth-century Greece. Leiden: Brill. Touwaide, A. 2014. “Nicander, Theriaka, and Alexipharmaka: Venoms, Poisons, and Literature,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 1, eEdited by P. Wexler 44–51. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. ———. 2014. “Harmful Botanicals,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 1, edited by P. Wexler, 60–68. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. ———. 2015. “Murder, Execution, and Suicide in Ancient Greece and Rome,” in History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 2, edited by P. Wexler, 1–8. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Vince, J., trans. 1935. Demosthenes. Orations, Volume III: Orations 21–26: Against Meidias. Against Androtion. Against Aristocrates. Against Timocrates. Against Aristogeiton 1 and 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Waniakowa, J. 2017. “Mandragora and belladonna: the Names of Two Magical Plants,” Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 124. Wasson, R., A. Hofmann, and C. Ruck. 1978 (1998). The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secrets of the Mysteries. Los Angeles: William Daily Rare Books. Wasson, R., S. Kramrisch, J. Ott, and C. Ruck. 1992. Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Webster, P., D. Perrine, and C. Ruck. 2000. “Mixing the Kykeon.” Eleusis: Journal of Psychoactive Plants and Compounds New Series, vol. 4: 1–25. West, M., trans. 2003. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wexler, P., ed. 2014. History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 1. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. ———. 2015. History of Toxicology and Environmental Health Vol. 2. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Wheeler, A. L., trans. 1924. Ovid. Tristia. Ex Ponto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

156

Bibliography

Wilson, Andrew, Morris Silver, Peter Fibiger Bang, Paul Erdkamp, and Neville Morley. 2012. “A forum on trade.” In Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy, edited by Walter Scheidel, 287–320. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Index

Achilles, 14 Aeschylus, 7, 23–24, 127 Alcaeus, 125–128 Alcibiades, 4, 5, 14, 27, 38, 40–41, 45, 63 Alexander the Great, 137–140 Alexis, 78 Anacreon, 130 Androcles, 40 Anthesteria wine festival, 31 Anticyra city, 57–58, 62–64, 67, 71n.2 Anticyra the Courtesan, 68–69, 146 Antiochus II, 137 Antiochus IV, 137–138 antidotes, 20, 104 Antiphon, 48–49 Apollonius Rhodes, 24–25 Apuleius, 50–51, 79–80 archaic intoxication, 125–126, 133 Aretaeus, 8, 91 Aristotle, 7, 38–39, 66–67, 76, 137 Artemidorus, 116–117 Asclepius, 12–14 Athenaeus, 2, 9, 95–96, 122, 124–125, 127–133, 135–140 Aristophanes, 7, 127; Wealth 13, Birds 45, Wasps 58, Knights 126, Clouds 39, 113 Aristophanes of Byzantium, 68

Aulus Gellius, 64 Bacchanalia, 31 biotechnology, 147–148 cannabis, 3, 4, 104, 111–117, 130 Cato the Elder, 66, 107 Catullus, 4, 114, 144 Celsus, 8, 37, 44, 70–71, 89–91 Chiron, 12–13 Cicero, 49–50 Circe, 16–21, 36, 47, 87, 124, Columella, 78–79 convivium, 1, 122 Cyclops, 22, 124 darnel, 3, 43, 76, 109–111 Demeter, 23, 25–27, 29, 40, 106, Democritus, 35–37, 64, 117 Diocletian Price Edit, 117 Diogenes Laertes, 37–38, 66 Dionysius II of Syracuse, 147 Dionysus, 22–23, 25–31, 45, 58, 98–99, 123–124, 128–130, 133–134, 140 Dioscorides, 2–3, 8, 18–19, 25, 66, 69–70, 87–89, 97, 101, 108, 115, 117, 122 DMT, 42, 148 dream interpretation, 116 157

158

Index

drinking contests, 139–140 drug overdose, 1, 7, 8, 20, 28, 50, 97, 100, 103–106, 136–137, 139– 140, 143 drug tolerance, 7, 57, 131 drug-dealers, 2, 39, 51–52, 55–57, 70, 102, 143, 147 drugs, 4–5, 7, 11–13, 15–29, 35–39, 41–52, 56–57, 59, 62–64, 76–79, 81–86, 89–92, 98, 100, 102–103, 105–106, 114, 121, 127, 131–133, 143, 145–148 drunk nations, 138 drunk rulers, 137 drunkenness, 6, 58–59, 91, 97–99, 124– 125, 128–129, 131–132, 138–139 Eleusinian Mysteries, 2, 5, 25–26, 38, 40–41, 43 Empedocles, 37–38 entheogen, 4, 42–45 Epicharmus, 134 Epictetus, 63 Epimenides, 37–38, 102 Ephippus, 113 ergot, 3, 43–44, 109–110 ethnobotany, 4 Eubulus, 134 Euripides, 7, 25, 27–29, 127, frankincense, 2, 3, 6, 51, 81, 108, 117–118 fumigation, 2, 44, 108, 145 Galen, 2, 8, 17–18, 20, 44, 70, 91–92, 110–11, 115, 123 Good Divinity, 127–130 hallucination, 15, 84, 89, 95, 117, 121 Helen, 12, 15–19 hellebore, 3, 6, 30–31, 50, 55–71, 73, 75–76, 79, 87, 102, 146 hemlock, 6, 50, 52, 56, 79, 95, 101–106 henbane, 3, 6, 73, 80–81, 90–92, 95–98, 100–102, 105, 108

Hera, 133 Herodotus, 30, 112, 115, 130 Hesiod, 23–24, 36, 124 Hippocrates, 2, 13, 35–36, 37, 64, 69, 86 Homer, 11–12, 14–17, 19, 21, 114, 124 Homeric Intoxication, 123–124 Horace, 62, 122, 144 humoral medicine, 2, 18 incense, 1–2, 12, 36, 51, 117–118 inspiration, 1–2, 28, 44, 61–65, 67, 108, 126–127, 143 kottabos, 139 kykeon, 2, 5, 14, 19–21, 26–27, 39–45 kyphi, 117–118, law, 4, 6, 51–52, 58, 60, 127 leisure, 6, 14, 57, 68, 73, 77, 87, 122, 143, 145–147 lifestyle drug usage, 136 LSD, 42–43, 148 Lucian, 64–66 Macrobius, 109 madness, 1–2, 5–6, 8, 27–31, 44, 59, 61, 66, 74, 76–77, 82–86, 91, 96–98, 100–101, 103, 105, 109, 117, 121, 123–124, 130, 132–133, 134, 147 magic, 1–2, 4–6, 13, 16, 19–21, 24–26, 29, 35–38, 44, 46–47, 49–51, 56, 69, 73–74, 80–81, 85, 87, 106, 108, 116–117, 121, 143 mandrake, 3, 6, 56, 73–82, 86–88, 90–92, 102, 108, 143 mania, 1–3, 5, 6, 22, 27, 29, 30, 38, 44, 59, 82, 89, 91, 96, 109, 117, 131 Marcianus Institutes, 51–52 Martial – 47, 122, 145 Menander, 7, 58–61, 102, 138 mental health, 6, 57–58, 147–148 Nestor, 14–15

Index

159

MDMA, 148 Medea, 16, 24–25, 36 Melampus, 30–31, 66 Mercury or Hermes, 20–21, 82, 124 moly, 19–21, 84–85 murder, 46, 48, 50, 73, 79 myrrh, 2, 3, 6, 51, 76, 81, 108, 117–118

Plutarch, 2, 8, 17–18, 41–42, 47, 67, 86, 97–100, 109, 111, 117–118, 122, 131, 147 poison, 3, 26, 28, 47–48, 50–51, 73, 75, 79, 84, 100–102, 106 Prometheus, 23–24 psilocybin, 42, 148

NDE (Near Death Experience), 42 Nicander, 7, 8, 20, 28, 97, 102–103, 106 nightshade or thornapple, 3, 6, 17, 21–22, 44, 73, 81–84, 86, 88–89, 95

religion, 1, 4, 11, 15, 27, 37, 39, 43, 56, 106, 113, 117, 121 Roman Empire, 8–9, 50–52, 63–64, 69, 80, 106, 109, 114, 143–145 Roman Republic, 49, 60, 66, 107, 109 rootcutter, 2, 55–56, 66, 102

Odysseus, 15–22, 47–48, 123–124 opium poppy, 3, 6, 15, 19–23, 25, 38, 56, 80, 84–86, 88–90, 100–101, 105–109, 131–132, 143 Ovid, hellebore 63, leisure culture 122, hook-up culture 144–145 party, 1, 3, 6, 9, 16, 18–19, 41, 58, 68, 78, 88, 95, 97–98, 100, 102, 109, 114, 121–122, 127–132, 137–140, 143–147 Pausanias, 57–58, 116 Persius, 63 Petronius, 64 pharmakon, 4, 16, 20–21, 45, 48, 61 Pherecrates, 95–96 Philip III (king of Macedonia) – 137 plants, 1–8, 12–13, 16–17, 21, 25–26, 35–39, 42, 46, 55–56, 64, 66, 70, 73–74, 77–79, 82–83, 85, 87, 89, 92, 95, 98–99, 101, 104, 108–110, 114–115, 117, 121, 145, 147 Plato or Socrates, 4–5, 14, 27, 38–39, 40, 45, 61, 63, 76–77, 101, 113, 122 Plautus, 58, 60–61, 147 Pliny the Elder, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17–18, 20–22, 25, 31, 35–37, 44, 46, 64, 66–67, 75–76, 84–85, 97, 100–101, 103–105, 107–108, 111, 114–115, 122, 139

Saturnalia, 109 scholarship on intoxication, 4–5, 43, 145 Scythian smoke, 112–113 Scythian style, 130–132 Sextus Empiricus, 105 Sophocles, 7, 25, 47, 98, 127 Spartan culture, 131 St. Basil of Caesarea, 105–106 Strabo, 57–58 stoicism, 65 symposium, 1, 6, 8–9, 18, 41, 58, 67, 77, 98, 109, 113, 122, 125–126, 131, 135, 139 Theognis, 125, 134–135 Theophrastus, 7, 17, 21, 45, 55–56, 57, 73, 101–102, 110, 122, 129 trance, 2, 28, 38, 51, 74 unmixed wine, 128–132 visions, 1–2, 6, 42–43, 80, 82, 84, 90, 95, 106, 117 warfare, 57, 84 women, 16–17, 27–28, 30, 36, 47–48, 68, 78, 95–96, 102, 136, 144 wormwood, 3, 76, 81 Xenophon, 77–78, 122

About the Author

Alan G. Sumler received his PhD in Classics in 2015 from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He currently teaches Latin at the University of Colorado, Denver, and philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He also teaches humanities at the College of Staten Island and Classics at Bowling Green State University. His research interests include myth in comedy and tragedy, myth rationalization in the ancient world, and psychotropic plant usage in ancient medicine and magic. Alan is a regular contributor to the popular finance websites Seeking Alpha and Talk Markets, where he covers biotechnology, energy, and emerging markets. He enjoys making electronic dance music and digital art in his spare time.

161