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Barke, Kyrenaica, c. 435 - 331 B.C.
Barke, Kyrenaica (El Merj, Libya today) was a Greek colony established in the 7th century B.C. in an upland valley separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a range of hills, part of the Jebel Akhdar Mountains. It was captured by the Persians in 512 B.C. and was annexed by the Ptolemy after Alexander the Great's death. Silphium grew only in Kyrenaica and most coins of the region, including this one, depict it. The stalk was eaten as a vegetable. Parts of the plant were used to treat all kinds of maladies including cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, pain, and warts. The fruit was considered both an aphrodisiac and a contraceptive, and was worth its weight in denarii. Unfortunately, we will never know if its medicinal properties were real or imagined because the plant became extinct in the first century A.D. It's said that Nero ate the last plant.
WR67897. Silver drachm(?), CNG e-auction 308, lot 208; BMC Cyrenaica - (see p, clxxviii for magistrate); Müller Afrique -; Buttrey Cyrene -; SNG Cop -; Traité I -, F, obverse rough, Barcé (Marj, Lybia) mint, weight 1.924g, maximum diameter 14.9mm, c. 435 - 331 B.C.; obverse TIMOKΠATEYΣ (magistrate), horned head of Zeus-Ammon right; reverse B-A-P, three branches of silphium; the referenced CNG coin is the only other example of this type known to Forum; rare; SOLD
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