Opium Smoking in Ancient Rome/Egypt???

[spittle]

After watching last nights episode of ROME (episode 9 of series 2) and witnessing half the cast indulging in hookah pipes and bongs and little brass ganja pipes I can contain myself no longer and must explain that the Romans, or any Old World culture never actually smoked opium.

 

According to 'OPIUM: A HISTORY' by Martin Booth,

"...the exclusivity of opium, which was eaten, meant very few people were addicted. However, this was to change when a particularly unique new vice, originating in the New World, was introduced to China by European sailors. It was smoking"

 

Although this paragraph is not specifically about the Romans it does explain that smoking substances was an idea that did not exist.

 

"Thus was born one one of the most evil cultural exchanges in history - opium from the middle east met the native American Indian pipe".

 

"For the Romans , the poppy was a powerful symbol of sleep and death. Somnus, the god of sleep is often portrayed as a small boy carrying a bunch of poppies and an opium horn, the vessel in which the juice was collected by farmers..."

 

Could this opium horn be the cause of the misunderstanding? Is it being mistaken for some kind of pipe?

 

 

I am hoping that someone will contradict my post and point to evidense of Old World cultures smoking cannabis or something. It seems improbable to me that hashish was not smoked before Tobacco made its way to Europe and Asia.

[Pantagathus]

Well Spittle,

 

Your source is pretty well correct insofar as we can tell. Opium was indeed widely used in antiquity. In fact there was a booming opium trade monopolized by the Cypriots during the end of the Bronze Age where it was shipped in miniature poppy shaped amphora as far off as Sardinia.

 

Thucydides mentions a mixture of poppy, flax oil and honey being the primary item smuggled by swimmers to the Spartans at Sphacteria when they were withstanding a siege there and Pliny of course discusses the medicinal virtue of the poppy.

 

Regardless, there isn

[spittle]

I agree that HBO use values from our age to depict drug use in the ancient world. they do the same in DEADWOOD where a corrupt doctor sells opiates to addicts 'under the table'. In the reality of the time (1870s) an opium addict would not even have to see a doctor. The narcotics were sold openly, and legally, over the counter at grocery stores!

 

If the pipe did not reach Europe, Asia or Africa until after Columbus it means that Hashish is a modern thing. I had an idea (unfoundered) of hashish making being an age old art.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, guys!

Do you know if there's evidence of smoking of any kind in the Old World before tobacco?

[Flavia Gemina]

In my books I have my Jewish doctor Mordecai use 'poppy-tears'. I got that term from Celsus. He's getting addicted to them in my latest book -- after a death in the family -- but he never smokes.

 

I agree with others that HBO's Rome is just trying to make things 'contemporary'. What a shame. I would much prefer seeing roots and bulbs pounded in a mortarium.

 

Spittle, I think it's great that you're an expert on the wild west, etc. My next series is going to be a kids' detective series set in Virginia City in the 1850's. I may call on your expertise again!

 

Valete, omnes!

[Pertinax]

Chewing the pulped poppy skins with residual latex (the tears FG mentions) was certainly used to relieve toothache or to mitigate pain during surgery, one might acquire a liking for such a sensation perhaps ? Dont forget that inhalation is a particularly effective method both for poisoning and narcotising . Arsenic, atropine, mercury, methanol ,opium and turpentine could all be readily inhaled to the woe or delight of the subject.

[Flavia Gemina]

In his delightful volume of short stories, The House of the Vestals, Steven Saylor has a short story called 'The Lemures'. In it, Gordianus's next-door-neighbour hallucinates after burning yellow leaves from an exotic shrub in his inner garden. Unfortunately Saylor doesn't say in his end-notes what it was...

 

Flavia

[Flavia Gemina]

I've been looking at the riddles of Symphosius just now and co-incidentally came across this one:

 

XL

 

Grande mihi caput est, intus sunt membra minuta;

Pes solum est unus, sed pes longissimus unus;

Et me somnus amat, proprio nec dormio somno.

 

Large is my head, within the parts are small,

One foot have I, but that is monstrous tall,

And sleep I give, though I sleep not at all.

[Flavia Gemina]

The answer is papaver or 'poppy'!

[Pertinax]

Salve, guys!

Do you know if there's evidence of smoking of any kind in the Old World before tobacco?

Inhalation perhaps , and Ive mentioned elsewhere that Strammonuim is a not unreasonable candidate for recreational usage, given its huge N African range and long usage by pre-Islamic Arab peoples.

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...=si&img=180

read my side annotation to this plate and note the Delphic reference please, but dont forget the long tradition of European psycho-active plant use in brewing (Henbane, Borage, Heather for example) , narcotising might have been from multiple sources.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Gratiam habeo, P! IOU another one.

 

BTW, what an outstanding herbal gallery and slide show do you have! I haven't seen it before, it was a pleasure.

[Pertinax]

Gratiam habeo, P! IOU another one.

 

BTW, what an outstanding herbal gallery and slide show do you have! I haven't seen it before, it was a pleasure.

 

Thank you, such compliments make the gallery worthwhile as a labour of love.

[spittle]

Flavia Gemina. I'm no expert on the wild west. I am a fan of the show DEADWOOD and quite well read on the history of drug use. Its prohibition often portrayed as being a moral issue that mankind as fought for ever but its a very modern attitude.

 

NB on the old world smoking.

 

According to the Wikipedia article 'SMOKING' which is, coincidentally, todays article, 'Cannabis as been smoked in India for over 4000 years'.

[Flavia Gemina]

...prohibition often portrayed as being a moral issue that mankind as fought for ever but its a very modern attitude

 

Excellent comment!

 

Thanks.

 

BTW, I am a huge Deadwood fan, too. And I wish David Milch had been able to do his series on Nero's Rome. It would have been wonderful!

[Nephele]

Resurrecting this thread, as I've just finished watching the commentary version of episode 5 of the second season of HBO's Rome.

 

The series writers or producers or consultants (?) acknowledged that opium was mainly ingested in the ancient world, rather than smoked, but they also gave this reason for their depiction of the opium smoking scenes:

 

"In the ancient world, opium was mainly eaten or taken as a drink, like laudanum, called cretic wine. There is, however, evidence from India that narcotics were already smoked in a primitive kind of bong. It was made from a gourd and its Indian name was doom natrah."

 

I can't find any reference anywhere to "doom natrah", and I've found only two references on the 'net to "cretic wine" Has anyone here ever heard or read of these?

 

-- Nephele