Not even the woods and the wilder face of Nature are without medicines, for there is no place where the holy Mother of all things did not distribute remedies for the healing of mankind, so that even the very desert was made a drugstore.... Hence sprang the art of medicine. Such things alone had Nature decreed should be our remedies, provided everywhere, easy to discover and costing nothing-the things in fact that support our life.... But if remedies were to be sought in the kitchen-garden... none of the arts would become cheaper than medicine.
—Pliny Natural History 24.1.1,4,5
I remember well the moment when I first became aware of the importance of medicinal herbs at Pompeii. It was an early summer morning in 1966 when we went into the insula (city block) across from the amphitheater to clear it of overgrowth before beginning our excavations. When my workmen spotted a patch of bright green weeds, they immediately rushed to dig them up and put them with their belongings, to take home at the end of the day (see Figs. 1, 2). I thought it very strange, and inquired why they did this. "For fegato," they told me, "it is very good." I was to learn as I worked at Pompeii that liver (fegato) ailments were a common complaint, hence the importance of the medicine made from the herb that my workmen were gathering, the common weed known as mullein (Verbascum sinuatum L.).
As the days passed and my workmen continued to collect plants, I began to wonder if the plants they were collecting for medicine were the same ones the ancient Romans had used for cures. In my work I so often have been impressed with the continuity of life in the shadow of Vesuvius. Frequently, when my workmen identified a new soil contour or other agricultural detail discovered in our excavations, I would ask them how they could be so certain. They would invariably reply, "Because we have always done it that way." When we uncovered a perfectly preserved hoe in our excavations, the happy worker who found it told me that he had a zappa at home that was an exact replica of the ancient one. The next morning he was at work early with the handle from his zappa, which fit the ancient hoe perfectly, ready to pose for a photo (see Fig. 3). Not far from the hoe, we found another ancient tool, an exact duplicate of the martellina that our workmen were using to clear weeds from the garden.
As I continued through the years to gather information about the medicinal plants used in modern Pompeii, I talked to many different people, some living in the country, some city dwellers, laypeople, and professionals (see Fig. 4). Again and again the same plants were mentioned—a limited but consistent list in which they placed great confidence. Among these were such common weeds as plantain (see Fig. 5) and purslane; there was also the lovely maidenhair fern, the fragrant alyssum, the ever-present bramble, or wild blackberry, bright blue larkspur, Apollo's laurel, even the English walnut, lettuce from the kitchen garden, and many others. It was exciting to discover the little white camomile with its yellow centers (see Fig. 6), chicory with its jewel-like blossoms of clearest blue, the beautiful red valerian (see Fig. 7), also "verbascum with the golden flowers," and the lacy St. John's wort (see Fig. 8).
We know that the ancient Greeks and Romans used medicinal plants extensively. Even the deities knew their virtues. The Roman poet Vergil recounts how, when the hero Aeneas suffered a deadly wound in battle and all attempts to heal him were in vain, his goddess mother, Venus, arrived on the scene with a stalk of dittany with downy leaves and purple flowers, which she had plucked on Crete's Mount Ida. After steeping the flower in river water, she gave the water to the aged Iapix, who washed the wound with it. Suddenly all pain left the body of Aeneas; the arrow which no one had been able to remove fell out unforced, and the eager Aeneas, with strength renewed, was ready to return to battle (Aeneid 12.411-431). Perhaps this episode reflects Vergil's early interest in medicine. He says that dittany was even used by wild goats, who cured themselves with it when struck by arrows. The Greek philosopher Theophrastus (ca. 370-288/5 B.C.), known as the "father of botany," in his Enquiry into Plants notes that dittany was peculiar to Crete, and that it was "said to be true, that, if goats eat it when they have been shot, it rids them of the arrow" (9.16.1). Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23/24-79) in his encyclopedic Natural History, often referred to as the Encyclopaedia Britannica of the Roman world, says that we learned from stags the value of dittany for extracting arrows from wounded flesh, for they ejected them by grazing on that herb (HN 8.97). A wall painting of Venus flying in with the healing dittany (Origanum dictamnus L.) for her son adorned the luxurious house of Siricus at Pompeii (located in Region VII, insula i, entrances 25 and 47) and is now in the Naples Museum (see Fig. 9).
Tradition is strong that Hippocrates (469-399 B.C.), the famed physician who lived on the Greek island of Cos, prescribed plant cures. Pliny the Elder frequently mentions the plants Hippocrates prescribed. On our first trip to Cos, many years ago, the local inhabitants proudly pointed out the aged plane tree near the harbor under which Hippocrates was believed to have sat as he wrote his prescriptions (see Fig. 10).
The present inhabitants of Cos, as elsewhere in the Greek world, continue to put great faith in the medicinal plants they gather. When I wrote to a Greek friend living on the island, inquiring about the plants she gathered, I experienced great difficulty attempting to explain that my interest was intellectual. She kept asking about the nature of my ailments, so that she could gather the appropriate plant and know whether leaf, flower, or root was needed. But she assured me of the efficacy of the remedies.
Hippocrates, the most famous of ancient doctors, was a contemporary of the philosopher Socrates and the historian Thucydides—three seminal thinkers of fifth-century Greece, who had great influence on subsequent thought. Just as Thucydides scientifically studied human political nature, Hippocrates studied our clinical nature and laid the foundations of medical science, for he developed practical medicine, fitting treatments to his diagnosis of each disease.
The so-called Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of medical treatises, which contains important portions dating from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., is not believed to include any actual writings of Hippocrates. But it may include teachings of the school of medicine which developed at Cos. From this corpus modern scholars have been able to put together a list of between four hundred and five hundred plants used as medicine, even though they are not discussed as a group.
The first Greek writings to contain the names of many plants, and information about them, had a medical purpose. The physician Diocles of Carystus, a contemporary of Aristotle practicing in Athens about 350 B.C., was the first person to write a book (now lost) containing systematic descriptions of plants and the ailments they cured. Such a book became known as an herbal.
But it is from Theophrastus that we get our first detailed information about Greek plants (see Fig. 11). In his Enquiry into Plants he systematically applied the principle of classification to the vegetable world for the first time and described Greek plants. As a pupil and good friend of Aristotle, who had been the tutor of Alexander the Great, Theophrastus had access to the botanical observations gathered by the experts who accompanied Alexander on his campaigns. Theophrastus, however, says very little about the medicinal uses of plants, except in book 9, sections 9-12, which have the character of an herbal. Book 9 lacks the scientific character of the rest of the work and may have been added by another author after the death of Theophrastus.
The only Greek literary writer to pay substantial attention to plants was the first great pastoral poet, Theocritus, who lived a generation or two after Theophrastus had established the new science of botany in Athens. Woven carefully into the pastoral idylls of Theocritus are sensitive descriptions of many different trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, and ferns, all in their correct habitat. In her study "Was Theocritus a Botanist?" Alice Lindsell argues that he had such training. Although a native of Syracuse, he lived much of his life in places outside of Sicily, including Cos, where he had friends and perhaps relatives. By the time of Theocritus, the famous school of medicine had been established at Cos. Tradition says that Theocritus studied medicine. This would imply the study of plants firsthand. Lindsell points out that . descriptions could have been written only by someone who had carefully examined the plants, their flowers, and in some cases their roots.
The sanctuary of Asclepius at Cos today draws tourists from all over the world, instead of the sick, who thronged the shrine in antiquity, seeking healing. The healing god Asclepius had been venerated at Cos from earliest times. Originally the sanctuary had only an altar. Only after the death of Hippocrates in the mid-fourth century was the construction of the healing shrine begun. It is located on the ledge of a mountain about three kilometers beyond the ancient harbor town of Cos.
The completed sanctuary had four terraces, joined by monumental stairways (see Fig. 12). A wide stairway led from the lowest (fourth) level to a Doric propylaeum (temple-style vestibule), which gave entrance to the third terrace, the place of cure (see Fig. 13). This terrace was enclosed on three sides by a portico which gave access to the various rooms for the sick. From this terrace, a wide stairway led to the second terrace. At the top of the stairway, the ancient visitor faced the altar of Asclepius. On the right was the temple of this god, in which, the ancient writers tell us, many votive offerings, including votive statues of great beauty, were deposited. On the left was a temple built during the Roman imperial period. From this terrace we enjoyed the beautiful vista of the blue Aegean Sea (see Fig. 14). At the foot of the stairway leading to the top terrace are the scanty remains of a building in which the priests lived. A much larger temple of Asclepius crowned the top terrace, built when this terrace was constructed during the enlargement of the sanctuary in the second century B.C.
From Pliny the Elder we learn about a "very famous" herbal medicine used to counteract the poison of venomous animals, a medicine so important that the recipe was carved in verse upon a stone in the temple of Asclepius at Cos. He proudly gives the recipe, but not in verse:
Take two denarii of wild thyme, and the same of opopanax [juice of all-heal] and of spignel respectively, one denarius of trefoil seed, of aniseed, fennelseed, ami and parsley, six denarii respectively, and twelve denarii of vetch meal. These are ground and passed through a sieve, and then kneaded with the best wine obtainable into lozenges, each of one victoriatus [a coin, stamped with a figure of Victory, half a denarius in weight]. One of these is given at a time mixed with three cyathi [one-half cup] of wine. (HN 20.264)
He concludes with the information that King Antiochus the Great is said to have used this preparation as an antidote for the poison of all venomous creatures except the asp.
Any study of Roman medicinal plants relies heavily on Pliny the Elder's Natural History. At the time of his death, Pliny was the commander of the Roman fleet stationed at Misenum, across the Bay of Naples from Vesuvius. He lost his life when trying to rescue friends during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Sixteen of the thirty-seven books in his Natural History (books 12-27) are devoted to plants and their various uses. Books 20 to 27 are for the most part an herbal concerned with the medicinal uses of plants.
Another author of a very different type, and writing at about the same time as Pliny, is the herbalist-physician Dioscorides (fl. ca. A.D. 60-78). This skilled physician from Asia Minor includes more than five hundred plants in his herbal, which is written in Greek but better known by its Latin title, De materia medica (The materials of medicine).
Dioscorides tells us that he knew plants from studying them in the field, and not merely from books. But he studied carefully, drawing extensively on the works of predecessors. Of these, he writes most favorably of Crateuas, the rhizotomist (herb-gatherer or root-cutter) who served as the physician of Mithridates VI of Pontus (120-63 B.C.), who was also an herbalist. Crateuas, who has been called "the father of plant illustration," had painted likenesses of plants, under which he wrote their properties, in his herbal, which is lost. Such illustrations would have been of great help to the reader in identifying plants, in the days before plants had scientific names. Some scholars believe that the original herbal of Dioscorides had illustrations. If so, we can understand why so often Dioscorides gives no description of a plant, only its medicinal uses. The earliest extant illustrated herbal was made in Constantinople in 512 for Princess Juliana Anicia, and known as the Juliana Anicia Codex. The manuscript, known as the Codex Vindobonensis Medicus Graecus, is in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (see Fig. 15).
Pliny the Elder (see Fig. 18) was a busy lawyer active in affairs of state, not a botanist or physician, but he had a most inquiring mind and inexhaustible energy. He was essentially a compiler who drew heavily on the works of his predecessors. His nephew, Pliny the Younger (see Fig. 17), in answer to an inquiry from the historian Tacitus, described in a letter the way in which his uncle worked, finding time to write seven works filling 102 libri, or volumes. The Natural History was the last of his works and the only one that survives. Pliny the Younger's description is important to anyone evaluating the evidence in the Natural History:
You may wonder how such a busy man was able to complete so many volumes, many of them involving detailed study; and wonder still more when you learn that up to a certain age he practiced at the bar, that he died at the age of fifty-five, and throughout the intervening years his time was much taken up with the important offices he held and his friendship with the Emperors. But he combined a penetrating intellect with amazing powers of concentration and the capacity to manage with the minimum of sleep.
From the feast of Vulcan onwards he began to work by lamplight, not with any idea of making a propitious start but to give himself more time for study, and would rise half-way through the night; in winter it would often be at midnight or an hour later, and two at the latest. Admittedly he fell asleep very easily, and would often doze and wake up again during his work. Before daybreak he would visit the Emperor Vespasian (who also made use of his nights) and then go to attend to his official duties. On returning home, he devoted any spare time to his work. After something to eat (his meals during the day were light and simple in the old-fashioned way), in summer when he was not too busy he would often lie in the sun, and a book was read aloud while he made notes and extracts. He made extracts of everything he read, and always said that there was no book so bad that some good could not be got out of it. After his rest in the sun he generally took a cold bath, and then ate something and had a short sleep; after which he worked till dinner time as if he had started on a new day. A book was read aloud during the meal and he took rapid notes. I remember that one of his friends told a reader to go back and repeat a word he had mispronounced. "Couldn't you understand him?" said my uncle. His friend admitted that he could. "Then why make him go back? Your interruption has lost us at least ten lines." To such lengths did he carry his passion for saving time. In summer he rose from dinner while it was still light, in winter as soon as darkness fell, as if some law compelled him.
This was his routine in the midst of his public duties and the bustle of the city. In the country, the only time he took from his work was for his bath, and by bath I mean his actual immersion, for while he was being rubbed down and dried he had a book read to him or dictated notes. When traveling he felt free from other responsibilities to give every minute to work; he kept a secretary at his side with book and notebook, and in winter saw that his hands were protected by long sleeves, so that even bitter weather should not rob him of a working hour. For the same reason, too, he used to be carried about Rome in a chair. I can remember how he scolded me for walking; according to him I need not have wasted those hours, for he thought any time wasted which was not devoted to work. It was this application which enabled him to finish all those volumes, and to leave me 160 notebooks of selected passages, written in a minute hand on both sides of the page, so that their number is really doubled. He used to say that when he was serving as procurator in Spain he could have sold these notebooks to Larcius Licinus for 400,000 sesterces, and there were far fewer of them then. (Letters 3.5.7-17)
Pliny opens the first book of his Natural History with a covering letter to his friend Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian, to whom he dedicates the work. He says that he has obtained his information from one hundred different authors, to which he added many of his own observations. The rest of Book I contains a table of contents of the remaining thirty-six books. At the end of the contents of each book, he appends a list of the authorities used, citing the works of both Greek and Roman writers. These include the Greek authors Theophrastus, Diocles of Carystus, and Crateuas. Among the Roman authors cited are Celsus, the poet Vergil, and the agricultural writers Cato, Varro, and Columella. Dioscorides is nowhere mentioned. But many passages in Pliny, as we shall see, are similar to some in Dioscorides. Pliny, however, is so scrupulous about listing his sources that we must conclude that both Dioscorides and Pliny borrowed extensively from the same sources. Although they were living at the same time, they did not know each other. Pliny had obviously read or heard Greek similar to that in Dioscorides' text, but Pliny's text is flawed due to his inferior understanding of the Greek. So there is no possibility that Dioscorides could have been copying Pliny.
Indeed, Pliny is far more than a mere copyist and compiler. Professor Jerry Stannard, in his article "Pliny and Roman Botany," would go so far as to call him the "Father of the History of Botany." Pliny used illustrated Greek herbals, which could help in associating Greek plants with those of his native Italy. But more important, he also studied the actual plants. He tells us:
I at least have enjoyed the good fortune to examine all but a very few plants through the devotion to science of Antonius Castor, the highest botanical authority of our time; I used to visit his special garden, in which he would rear a great number of specimens even when he had passed his hundredth year. (HN 25.9)
Stannard comments, "Were it not for this passage we should never know about the prototype of the modern physic garden."
A contemporary of Pliny is Celsus, whom Pliny quotes. Little is known of Celsus and, with the exception of a few fragments, little of his encyclopedic work on a variety of subjects remains, except his medical treatise, De medicina. This contains considerable information about plant cures. He begins this work praising medicinal plants:
Just as agriculture promises nourishment to healthy bodies, so does the Art of Medicine promise health to the sick. Nowhere is this Art wanting, for the most uncivilized nations have had knowledge of herbs... for the aiding of wounds and diseases.
He continues by outlining briefly the history of medicine up to his time, giving an excellent summary of Greek medicine. His Latin is elegant, and the sound judgment with which he selected his material gives his De medicina great value.
The works of three ancient physicians also include information about plant cures, to be cited below. The Roman physician Scribonius Largus (ca. A.D. 1-50), a near contemporary of Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides, in his Compositiones (Prescriptions), his only surviving work, relies heavily on herbal remedies. But his lists of ailments cured by each prescription are far shorter than those of Pliny and Dioscorides. In A.D. 43 Scribonius accompanied the emperor Claudius on his campaign in Britain. Soranus of Ephesus, one of the greatest physicians of antiquity, practiced in Rome during the reigns of the emperors Trajan (A.D. 98-117) and Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) and was the author of almost twenty books on medicine. The Gynecology, his most important surviving work, lists medicinal plants used in treating women and young children. The physician Galen (A.D. 129?-199), whose writings survive in the largest number, had the greatest influence on subsequent generations. Although he was born about fifty years after the destruction of Pompeii, it is of interest to compare his prescriptions with earlier ones.
Archaeology has unearthed many material remains of the peoples of antiquity. But plants are very fragile and rarely survive. The extremely dry climate of Egypt has preserved some plant material in the ancient tombs. But such conditions are not found in Greek and Roman sites. It was therefore a rare and fortuitous discovery when several meters of carbonized hay were found in the Pompeii area, in a villa rustica at Oplontis (modern Torre Annunziata)—spectacular evidence for the flora of the area in antiquity.
The hay, brought to the villa from the site of its harvest in a vineyard, has been carefully studied by Professor Massimo Ricciardi and Dr. Giuseppa Grazia Aprile, who have thus far identified 128 taxonomic entities in the hay, adding 81 species, 37 genera, and one family to the list of 408 plants which, as P. A. Saccardo had previously shown, were probably known to the Romans in the first century A.D. Found in the hay are the carbonized blossoms, seeds, leaf and stem fragments, and pollen of many wild flowers and weeds (see Figs. 19-22), including some that are still used today as medicinal plants by the modern Pompeians. In 1983 a large amount of similar but less well preserved material was found stored in a room in a villa rustica at Terzigno, higher on the slopes of Vesuvius, but thus far it has yielded no new plants.
Pompeii and the other Vesuvian sites, because of the way in which they were preserved by the sudden and tragic eruption of Vesuvius, are a unique and precious source of information about ancient plants. In the many gardens, orchards, vineyards, and farmlands that I have excavated in the Vesuvian sites, we have found actual carbonized seeds, roots, fruits, and stems that enable us to identify the ancient plants. But such carbonized plant remains owe their survival to chance. They are preserved only in areas covered by pyroclastic flows, for such flows furnish sufficient heat to carbonize plant material. Unfortunately, most of the precious plant information preserved at Pompeii has been lost forever. Most of the city had been excavated before I began salvaging plant material for the first time. Our spectacular finds occurred in only a small part of the totally excavated area, often in sites where previous excavations had removed most of the lapilli that would have contained plant material. We still lack remains of many plants that we know were present during the Roman period.
Perfectly preserved planting patterns are another source of information. Invariably my workers recognized the patterns still followed in their own gardens. Pollen analysis is a further source of information. Contemporary refinements in the study of carbonized pollen have made possible the identification of many more ancient plants. But even information derived from pollen is limited. The area covered by volcanic ash does not provide ideal conditions for the preservation of pollen. Some of the pollen we found was badly damaged and could be identified only to family, not genus or species. Then too some pollens survive for a shorter time than others. Recently, a core taken at Lake Avernus by Professor Eberhard Grüger and his colleagues has added tremendously to our knowledge of the flora of the area. For a detailed description of the flora of the ancient Vesuvian area, which includes a discussion of the various kinds of archaeological evidence, see the pertinent chapters written by specialists in the forthcoming book The Natural History of Pompeii and the Other Vesuvian Sites, edited by Dr. Meyer and myself.
Archaeological evidence is extremely important, for it is not always possible to know exactly what plant an ancient writer is referring to, especially if the writer mentions only the name of the plant and does not describe it. Some plants, which have had the same names since antiquity, can be identified without difficulty. For example, the ancient cyclamen (Greek [], Latin cyclaminos), the ancient crocus (Greek [], Latin crocus), and the ancient chicory (Greek []) Latin cichorium) are the same plants that we know by these names today. In some cases, however, unless the plant is described in some detail, the particular species cannot be determined. Identification becomes very difficult when the ancient authors refer to one plant by several names, perhaps using regional names, or use the same name for several very different plants. For example, the Romans gave the name violet (viola) to several entirely different plants. The name was used to refer to the sweet violet (Viola odorata L.), the stock, or gilliflower (Matthiola incana (L.) R. Br.) and perhaps the wallflower (Erysimum cheiri (L.) Cranz). Other violets mentioned by Pliny are unidentifiable.
It was not until the eighteenth century, when the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus devised a system of plant classification and consistently assigned to each known plant a Latin name called a binomial, or binary name (one for the genus, and one for the species), that greater stability in plant nomenclature was established.
As I gathered information about the medicinal plants used in the Pompeii area today, I discovered that almost all of them, according to the ancient authors, were used medicinally in antiquity. Today, however, a given plant is normally used for far fewer ailments, not as a panacea for a long list of complaints, including snakebite; but in most cases the present use was one valued in earlier days. At times it has been difficult to identify with certainty the exact species the ancient authors are describing. But various species of a given genus usually share common medicinal properties. Today medicinal uses of some plants vary in different parts of Italy, perhaps depending on local needs or traditions.
I have been able to get information about thirty-six plants collected for medicine in the Pompeii area, certainly a much, much smaller number than would have been used in antiquity, when plants were the principal source of medication. Animal and mineral products were used only to a very limited extent. Today the number of plants collected for medicine is decreasing rapidly. This does not mean, however, that plants are no longer used as medicine. With the increased industrialization of society, there is less time to collect and prepare plants for medicine. But they can be bought in stores that specialize in herbal medicine. I remember vividly the year I returned to Pompeii and discovered such a store directly across from the excavations. Fortunately, I began this study over thirty years ago, when it was still possible to preserve this valuable evidence, which represents such a direct continuity with the past.
In the text that follows, I have headed each entry with the scientific name, or names, given to the plant by Linnaeus or by a subsequent author, followed by the common name, or names, in English and in Italian. A short description of the plant is usually given, unless it is a very familiar plant. Any mythological associations with the plant are mentioned. The archaeological evidence for the presence of the plant in the Vesuvian area at the time of the eruption is noted. We have this kind of evidence for a majority of the plants described, with the exception of the eucalyptus, which is a newcomer. The remaining plants, believed to be indigenous to the area, would have been known to the ancient Pompeians, with the possible exception of the hollyhock and the alyssum. A description of the medicinal uses of the plant in the Pompeii area today follows, and finally the medicinal uses of the plant as reported by the ancient authors. (The translations of the ancient authors quoted are indicated in the bibliography.) The reader should be warned, however, of the potential danger of using any of the remedies described in this book. The dosage is important; some of the plants are poisonous even in small amounts and can cause miscarriage and various side effects. Facing each plant description is one of the beautiful plant portraits drawn by Lillian Nicholson Meyer or Victoria I.
As we explore the medicinal plants used at Pompeii today, discovering plants which the ancient inhabitants also knew and valued, we get still another glimpse into the lives of those people who lived so long ago, and with whom the present inhabitants feel a close kinship. There comes to mind an experience that happened during my early days at Pompeii, when one of my workmen proudly explained to me that one of his ancestors ran for office in ancient Pompeii. The proof: they had the same name, and it was painted on the walls, along the streets of the excavated city, on many an election notice in which the ancient candidate was asking people to vote for him!
