The wines and herbs in the land of Pan
In early December, the interdisciplinary Oino Istoro (or Talking Wine) group and Ktima Spyropoulos winery held the «Symposium of Arcadian Wine Talk.» I presented a paper there, which I want to summarize here. The inspiration for this paper came from an extract from «The Deipnosophists» by Athenaeus, which refers to certain wines with unusual qualities: «Theophrastus says that in Heraia, Arcadia, they produce a wine which when drunk stimulates men and makes women get pregnant. He also says that in Keryneia in Achaia, there grows a vine variety from which is made a type of wine that makes pregnant women miscarry; they even miscarry if they eat its grapes. The wine of Troezen makes those who drink it infertile. In Thassos they make a wine that is a soporific and another that causes insomnia.» Concoctions Wonderful though wine is, with hypnotic and aphrodisiac properties known since antiquity, it could not have such effects on human health. These «miraculous» properties were the result of drinking concoctions, as Dioscurides calls the plethora of pharmaceutical wines whose methods of preparation he describes. He notes that the preparations acquire the strength of the plant that is mixed with them, and that such wines are not suitable for healthy people. Both Dioscurides and Theophrastus describe the potency of various herbs, that is to say their pharmaceutical properties. For instance, some herbs cause relaxation and help those who have difficulty sleeping. Tisanes and tablets made of such herbs are in use today in medicine and homeopathy. In antiquity one of the best known soporifics was mandrake. In the «Symposium» of Xenophon, when the host suggests that everyone start drinking because they are thirsty, Socrates agrees, saying, «The time has come to drink, my friends, because wine, watering our souls, puts our sorrows to sleep as mandrake puts humans to sleep; and it awakens cordiality just as oil livens up the flame.» Dioscurides gives a detailed description of how mandrake wine was prepared by the addition of the peel from the root of the plant, and he adds that in large doses it was fatal. Apart from mandrake there were other herbs that promoted sleep, such as aristolochia or Dutchman’s pipe, one of the well-known herbs of Arcadia. According to Theophrastus, robust honeyed wine, to which shavings of aristolochia root had been added, induced sleep. Hence it is no surprise that on Thassos they used to make a wine that fought insomnia. There were then, as there are today, herbs that promote sleep. By contrast, just as a cup of coffee can give some people insomnia when drunk at night, so there were herbs which were drunk in wine in those days to keep the Thassiotes awake. A glance at Dioscurides reveals a surprising number of herbs said «to induce abortions.» And Plutarch confirms this: «They gave pregnant women a herb that was capable of inducing an abortion.» The ancient Greek world, encouraged by philosophers such as Aristotle, who supported birth control as a means of dealing with poverty and the crimes that it gave rise to, used many drugs in order to induce abortions. As for the paradoxical event in Keryneia where not only the wine but even the grapes were said to be abortifacients, Dioscurides explains that there is a wine that is harmful to embryos «elleboros (hellebore) or sikyos agrios or skammonia are planted among the vines, and the grapes absorb their potency,» affecting the wine that was made from them. Naturally enough, in such circumstances the grapes themselves acquired abortifacient properties. There is however a significant difference. Those herbs were not deliberately planted among the vines; in many vineyards they grew wild. Besides, in many areas the grapes were sprinkled with salted shavings of the root of the herbs so that the bitter taste would protect the fruit from locusts and other parasites. Anyone who happened to eat the unwashed fruit suffered the effects of the herb that had been used as a pest repellent. So there is nothing surprising about what went on in the vineyards of Keryneia. While many herbs are referred to as abortifacients and others as possessing contraceptive properties, only two of the herbs described by Dioscurides are mentioned in relation to male sterility. Apiganos (Ruta graveolens) when its seed is drunk in wine, and cultivated cannabis when its fruit is eaten in large quantities were said to be spermicidal. So there are very common herbs among Greek flora that explain the side effects of the wine preparation of Troezen in the Argolid, which was said to make those who drank it sterile. But we must not assume that the purpose was to tie a man down, as with the magical herbs of the Middle Ages and more recent times. Apiganos was drunk in wine as an antidote to poisons, while cannabis has many uses – it is spun for fiber, contains oil and is edible. Unlike Indian cannabis, it contains the minutest quantities of the psychoactive substance tetrahydracannabinol. Both, however, were said to affect sexual performance, just as some contemporary drugs for hypertension create problems with erectile dysfunction. The first phrase in the extract from Theophrastus concerning Arcadian wines is hard to interpret because the verb «existimi» has many meanings, one of which is «make someone go mad.» But the same verb also has the meaning of «excite, stimulate» and it is that sense which has been attributed to Athenaeus’s translation in the French university collection. The ancient sources refer to several herbs which, apart from their other therapeutic properties, were considered to be aphrodisiacs, depending on whether their seeds, buds and roots were drunk in sweet or dry wine, Dioscurides mentions a number of such herbs including akalifi (the common nettle) which, when made into a soup, is considered to this day to be an aphrodisiac dish. The second meaning of the verb fits in with the rest of the phrase in question. Notwithstanding immaculate conception, the women of Arcadia could not have got pregnant by drinking wine, no matter what miraculous herb had been added to it. The only way would have been if they took advantage of the stimulating effect of the wine on their men. Stimulant In his work on the nature of women, Hippocrates advises what should be done if a woman wishes to become pregnant. He counsels a woman to drink wine and then sleep with her husband. However, neither of the two meanings of the verb «existimi» can be ruled out if one takes into account that the effect of certain herbs directly depends on the quantity that is taken. For example, take common coriander. When its seed is swallowed in small quantities in sweet wine, it promotes fertility, writes Dioscurides, while if it is taken in a large quantity it can cause dangerous confusion, so regular consumption of large amounts is to be avoided. Thus coriander wine could have an aphrodisiac effect but in the case of abuse might lead to madness – the dual meaning of the verb «existimi.» I do not have the honor of being either a doctor or a botanist. I simply wanted to use exclusively ancient Greek sources to examine the properties of certain wines that raised questions among scholars. And so I came to Mantineia, the land of Pan, rich in pharmaceutical herbs. (1) Stavroula Kourakou is a chemist and oenologist.
