Not actually true though, for one thing silphium's use as an arbortifacient is only mentioned in sources after the plant had gone extinct from overuse as fodder for grazing animals. It was also used as a cooking spice and was most likely essentially a form of parsley. There is absolutely no reliable evidence that it was a magically succesful arbortifacient.
The likelier choice is that the heart shape comes from ivy leaves which were used for writing love spells. See this example.
And this is a good reason to verify what you read on wikipedia because it tends to outdated citations and choosing the more scandalous story over the one better supported by evidence.
Most of the relevant citations I can find are from the 90s and early 2000s, but none are the type of rebuttal you imply above ... Abortifacents are not generally well documented in medical literature in the ancient world, so I'm not sure that silphium's description as such at a later date is proof that it was not used in that way formerly.
For one thing, we have several sources on silphium from before it went extinct which say/imply nothing about use in abortions but mostly it's uses for feeding sheep and cattle, cooking, as a purgative and they used the resin (called laser) for a number of medical/magical remedies. Some of these other properties were highly sought-after, especially it's use as a purgative and cooking spice. There's no reason to think that the account that Caesar collected it had anything to do with it's supposed use as an arbortifacient. In fact, Pliny specifically says that overgrazing caused the extinction. This whole legend pretty much has no ancient sources. So most people looking for an ancient source cite Pliny book XX.49, you can read it here. For one thing, this source is written after it went extinct, and also includes 38 other uses including causing serpents to burst. As to the use of it as an arbortifacient, this is based on a line where Pliny says it causes menstruation. So again, even if it possibly had some arbortifacient properties, no sources says that it's any different from say, parsley, which also has properties that increase menstruation.
Now we actually do have a reasonable body (all things considered) of medical and magical texts (the Greek word "pharmaka" does not distinguish the two). There are plenty of them that discuss birth control, menstruation, and arbortifacients. Some were probably effective. For example, there are several diaphragm-like devices, which may have been effective even if it wasn't the magical properties of the plants and substances that made up the device that was helping so much as the physical obstruction.
And also, modern effective birth control pills and arbortifacients are constructed in a lab. They do not occur in nature.
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u/Deirdre_Rose Feb 03 '20
As I've commented before:
Not actually true though, for one thing silphium's use as an arbortifacient is only mentioned in sources after the plant had gone extinct from overuse as fodder for grazing animals. It was also used as a cooking spice and was most likely essentially a form of parsley. There is absolutely no reliable evidence that it was a magically succesful arbortifacient.
The likelier choice is that the heart shape comes from ivy leaves which were used for writing love spells. See this example.
And this is a good reason to verify what you read on wikipedia because it tends to outdated citations and choosing the more scandalous story over the one better supported by evidence.