Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

those of Soranus and the plants Alexandra had found in Georgian folk medicine with aunt
Sophia and Leist’s help.
Konrad became their invaluable expert in identifying the plants. Many of the plants still
had the same Greek botanical names that Dioskorides had used, like artemisia, epimedion,
and aristolochia.
There were a few surprises: The seeds of the pomegranate, punica granatum—which
Hades had given Persephone when she arrived in the underworld—turned out to be a very old
abortifacent! Konrad had always thought that Hades had given Persephone the seven seeds of
the pomegranate for symbolic reasons—who eats of the pomegranate will be fruitful and be
destined for Hades—it now appeared as if Hades might have given Persephone the seeds to
prevent her from bearing a dead child in the underworld!
"Do you remember Deda’s Easter play? My whole story of Persephone in the
underworld will have to be revised. How can she bear Brimus, if Pluto made her use
pomegranate seeds as a contraceptive?"
"Oh, very easily," laughed Alexandra, "she only ate the sweet meat off the seeds and
spit our the pits when Pluto was not looking! Persephone was not that dumb."
"Well, maybe Demeter’s desperate fight for Persephone’s return every year gains a new
aspect: to allow Persephone to deliver her children above ground in sunshine. Maybe
underground she did after all use pomegranate seeds!"
Not always could Konrad correlate Dioskorides’ plant names with known plants, such
was the case with the mysterious silphion. This plant also appeared in Soranus, and in both
texts headed the list of efficient and relatively harmless abortifacients. What was it? Soranus
also called it "Cyrenaica juice" which led Claudia and Konrad to discover that the name also
appeared in Herodotus (4.169) who reports that silphion was cultivated in the Cyrenaica. Rose,
unable to identify the plant in his translation of Soranus, made a reference to Plinius’ Natural
History (19.15.38) where it is mentioned under the name laserpicium, "quod Graeci silphion
vocant, in Cyrenaica provincia repertum–sucus herbae ferula." Yet, a little earlier (19.15.35)
Plinius reported that the plant had been "extinct for many years."
Konrad was delighted. "Well, of course, it must have been a ferula, a fennel, like ferula
asafoetida, which you encountered in Georgian recipes. But it is peculiar that silphion should
have been extinct by Plinius’ time, less than thirty years after Dioskorides. What happened?"
Wanting to examine the Dioskorides manuscript again, they found that a Professor
Wellmann had his hands on the copy.
Wellmann was less than delighted to be pursued by two female competitors, he was
also working on a translation of the Materia Medica. It took the two women several days to
convince the suspicious professor, that they were interested only in a very narrow selection of
medical plants and would delight in using his translation instead of their dilettante work of love
and excitement.
Wellmann confessed that his translation was unfinished, that he had nothing to show
yet. Finally Claudia invited him for tea to her parents’ house which predictably melted the
professor. At this occasion Alexandra charmed the professor into telling them what he knew
about the elusive silphion.
Silphion was, in fact, a giant fennel that grew in a small region of the Cyrenaica. Its
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