KYRENAICA, Kyrene. temp. Magas. Circa 294-275 BC. AR Didrachm (19.5mm, 7.63 g, 12h). Head of Zeus Karneios left / Silphion plant; to upper left, coiled serpent left; monogram to upper right, KY-PA across central field. BMC 243–5; SNG Copenhagen 1239. Lightly toned, a few light scratches. VF.
Kyrene was the capital city of Kyrenaika on the North African coast immediately west of Egypt. Dorian Greek colonists founded Kyrene in 631 BC. The region played host to a wild-growing plant called silphion (or silphium), with a thick, striated and hollow stalk, broad horizontal branches, and yellow flowers that grew in bunches. The Greeks ascribed near magical properties to both the plant itself and its sap, called laserpicium by the Romans. Silphion had countless uses, including as a salve for burns, a treatment for hemorrhoids, cure for tetanus, and a seasoning for food, and was also described as having various properties associated with love and sex. From its earliest coinage, circa 525 BC, Kyrene featured the silphion plant and fruit on its coin designs. Ancient sources state that the Kyreneans found silphion impossible to cultivate and could only gather it from the fields where it grew wild. In the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods, over-harvesting and grazing by domesticated animals allegedly drove it to extinction. Pliny reported that the last known stalk of silphion was given to the Emperor Nero “as a curiosity.” A close relative of silphion likely exists today in the giant fennel plant, ferula communis, which still grows in North Africa and elsewhere.
