Herbs in History: Basil
Basil Ocimum basilicum L. CONTENTS |
By Alain Touwaide & Emanuela Appetiti | June 2024
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The King, the Scorpion, and the Pot
Illustration 1: Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) |
Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) (Lamiaceae) (Illustration 1) is more than ever on our tables in this month of June, with its fresh leaves adding a sweet parfum to a salad, a caprese with tomato and mozzarella, or a delicious pizza Margherita. Not to speak of pasta tossed with an abundant pesto-cream enriched with pinenuts. Basil is more than a culinary herb around the world from Italy to Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. In the Hindu religion, it is a sacred plant (tulsi = Ocimum tenuiflorum L. [O. sanctum L.]) which is not abundantly used in Indian cuisine for this reason. The history of basil is not simple and requires a meticulous investigation that results in a sinuous itinerary through plant naming, synonymy, and etymology.
The King
Judging from its native distribution, Basil started its history in the vast Asian region from India to South China, going from West to East, including (but not limited to) Bangladesh, Nepal, the Himalayas, Taiwan, and from Myanmar to Queensland and Western Australia going from North to South, with Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines among others (Illustration 2). Nothing of this originally predisposed basil to be the important Mediterranean plant that it has become today.
Illustration 2: Native distribution of Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) - Plants of the Word Online (POWO) |
The name of one of its species (basilicum), traditionally interpreted as a derivative from the Greek term basilikon referring to a king not better identified, seems to provide a starting point to uncover a Mediterranean history digging deep into time, as far back as Antiquity. However, a systematic screening of the most ancient written documentation relevant here—the collection of medical writings attributed, but not written, by the Father of Medicine Hippocrates (460-between 375 and 350 BCE))—does not yield any information, even when queried with the most advanced tools for computer-assisted research. This is probably why some historiography mentions that basil was not known in the Hippocratic Collection, whereas it was as will appear below.
Taking another path—the lists of plant names compiled in the ancient Greek world from Antiquity to Byzantium—we discover that basilikon is in fact the synonym of another term: ôkimon. Before checking if this term helps discover the history of basil, we immediately notice that it is the name used by Carl von Linnaeus (1707-1778) in Genera plantarum (ed. 5, 1754) to identify the genus in which he classified basil: Ocimum (Genera plantarum: 259, no. 651). And one of the species is basilicum, showing that Linnaeus knew well the classics. Hence Ocimum basilicum L., the species researched here.
Illustration 3: Flower of basil |
Illustration 4: Basil as represented in manuscript of London, British Library, Sloane 4016, f. 68 verso, Tractatus de herbis, with its typical flower |
Armed with this new term ôkimon, we do locate it in the botanical literature of Antiquity, the Historia Plantarum (Inquiry into Plants) by the Father of Botany Theophrastus (371/0-287/6 BCE). The plant designated by this term is not described in a specific monograph, but in passages scattered throughout the treatise about the way(s) of describing and categorizing the different parts that form a plant. The most significant element allowing for correct identification might be the description of the flower, which flourishes several times in succession throughout the year (7.3.1), from the lower part to the top (7.3.1), with the seeds at the top (7.3.2 and 3) (Illustrations 3-4). ôkimon is considered one of the plants with the highest quantity of seeds (7.3.4). Of interest also , the reference to the propagation from seeds (7.2.1), several times in the year (7.1.2), with the quickets germination and growth (7.1.3).
The last element of characterization might be more interesting than it seems as it can provide a clue to the phytonym ôkimon, which has not found an explanation in etymological research, apart from a connection with the Greek verb ozô meaning to be fragrant, to smell sweet. This etymology is not supported by solid philological evidence. There is, however, a plant whose name is built on this verb ozô: rucola, named euzômon in ancient Greek. Through it, we understand that the term okimon cannot be a derivative of the verb ozô. A small variant of ôkimon, almost imperceptible, which escaped attention, helps interpret correctly the name: in some versions of the Hippocratic texts below, ôkimon is written ôkumon. This variant points to a connection with the Greek adjective ôkus meaning fast, quick. It is the adjective that always qualifies Achilles in the Iliad: the fast runner. Once we have discovered this, we notice plant names in the Latin botanical literature that confirm the link ôkimon/ôkus. This Latin plant name is ôkinon and it has a Greek synonym: ôkuthroos. Both are used for clover defined as the quickly growing plant (ôkus). If this certainly is a defining trait for clover, it can also be for basil, which indeed grows easily from seed, and in just a few days.
Now that we know that the Greek term ôkimon refers to basil, we can return to the Hippocratic Collection where we do find it in four treatises:
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Women’s Diseases, dating toward mid-5th century BCE (Book I, chapter 93);
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Internal Affections, of the decade 400-390 BCE (chapter 12);
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Affections, of the years 380s BCE (chapter 43);
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Regimen, dating to the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE (Book II, chapter 54).
In the first three, basil is administered to act on the gastro-intestinal system, to stop vomiting (Women’s Diseases) or to provoke purgation (Internal Affections and Affections). Its action is expressed in a more abstract, theoretical way in Regimen. There, it is identified as a vegetable and credited with the property of being dry, hot, and astringent (II.54). The latter echoes the antiemetic property according to Women’s Diseases.
The Scorpion
Nothing in the history of basil thus far is royal! We need to return to the synonymy that allowed us to discover the Greek name of basil: basilikon as synonym of ôkimon.
Basilikos is, indeed, a Greek adjective that refers to kingship, royalty, regal. It has been suggested that the scent of basil is so “excellent that it is fit for a king's house”. And there is also a royal ointment in the treatise On Compound Medicines according to the Places [of the Body] compiled by the Greek physician Galen (129-after [?] 216 CE): [Ointment] identified as “Royal Indian” (Indikon Basilikon”), Book I, chapter 450). The ointment is indicated for the treatment of amblyopy, among others, supposedly by applying it on the eyes. The formula is made of some rare and exotic substance, included indigo paste, which might account for its name Indian since indigo was a typical production of India. In the same work, another formula is identified as Royal (Basilikon) (Book 9, chapter 581). It is indicated for the treatment of swellings without fever, liver inflammation and neuralgia. It is made of several ingredients, including Indian Nard, something that might have justified its name as royal since this was a rare and costly substance imported from the Himalayas through India and the maritime trade via the Red Sea.
The real meaning of the term points to another direction. In ancient Greece, the king identified by the term basilikos was most oftentimes the king of Persia. The Persian empire at the eastern frontier of the ancient Greek world (which extended up to current Turkey and beyond, including the current Middle East) was identified by the Greeks by reference to its political system, which was a hereditary monarchy, that is, the exact opposite of the Greek democracy, based on elections. The King in the ancient Greek language was almost always the king of Persia and the adjective royal referred to Persia. Through this politico-ideological interpretation of the term basilikos we discover a connection between basil and the East. Knowing that basil is native to India and beyond, we would not be surprised if it had been brought to the Greek world through the intermediary of the Persian empire, which traded with the Greek world in spite of political differences and ideological considerations.
This interpretation is all the more possible because the therapeutic profile of basil in the Greek world was certainly not royal or of a king. The indications in the Hippocratic Collection as above are few, and not remarkable.
In the vast corpus of ancient Greek natural sciences, there is a snake with a name close to that of basil: basiliskos. This is a venomous snake reported to kill almost instantaneously its victim. Although it might be a cobra, the neurotoxic venom of which is indeed fulgurant as the story of Cleopatra’s suicide best illustrates, it became legendary and super-natural, with a great many tales and legends recounting fatal encounters further transformed into epic literary battles up to Harry Potter. But this is certainly not the origin of the name of basil. Nevertheless, venom gives us a hint to a belief about basil transmitted by the ancient Latin naturalist Pliny (23/4-79 CE) in his monumental encyclopedia of natural sciences, Historia Naturalis (Natural History). In this huge repository of anecdotes and other data on plants, animals, minerals and also humans, we learn about a fatal attraction between basil and scorpions, and not only (20.119):
Certain authorities add that pounded basil, if covered by a stone, breeds a scorpion, and that basil chewed and left in the sun breeds worms.
This attraction by some sort of natural sympathy can become fatal by an inverted mechanism of antipathy according to the same passage in Pliny’s Natural History:
The Africans moreover hold that a man's life is lost if he is stung by a scorpion on the same day as he has eaten basil.
Antipathy can be universal through the living world as per the same report by Pliny:
Moreover, some hold that if a handful of basil be pounded up with ten sea or river crabs, all the scorpions in the neighbourhood are drawn to it.
The truth is that basil had a contested reputation. In the treatises of the Corpus Hippocraticum, it certainly is not a major therapeutic agent credited with significant healing properties. It might even be the case that it gained an explicit negative reputation. According to Pliny, the philosopher Chrysippus (ca. 280-207 BCE), famous in the Stoic School to provide arguments for debates on many fronts, categorically rejected its use, including because of the universal antipathy (Natural History 20.120):
Basil too was severely condemned by Chrysippus as injurious to stomach, urine and eyesight, adding that it causes madness, lethargy, and liver troubles, and that for this reason goats refuse to touch it, so that men also ought to avoid it.
At the same time, and still according to Pliny, basil had its defenders, who explicitly contradicted Chrysippus (Natural History 20.120-123):
Illustration 5: Basil in manuscript of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 9333, folio 28 recto, Tacuinum sanitatis |
The period that followed [that of Chrysippus] saw strong defenders of basil, who said that goats do eat it, that no man’s mind has been affected by it, and that in wine and a little vinegar it cures the stings of land scorpions and the venom of those in the sea.
Experience also proves, they say, that basil if smelt in vinegar is good for fainting; also for lethargy, and to cool inflammations; for headache, too, if used as a liniment with rose oil or with myrtle oil or with vinegar, and for eye fluxes if applied in wine.
It is said too, to be beneficial to the stomach, to disperse flatulence by belching if taken in vinegar, to check looseness of the bowels if applied externally, to be diuretic, applied thus to be good for both jaundice and dropsy, and to check even the diarrhoea of cholera.
Philistion [late 5th to mid-4th cent. BCE] therefore prescribed basil even for coeliac complaints and when boiled for dysentery; some against the advice of Pleistonicus [3rd cent. BCE] prescribe it in wine for tenesmus, spitting of blood and hardness of the hypochondria. Applied to the breasts it checks the flow of milk. It is very beneficial, especially with goose grease, for the ears of babies. The pounded seed snuffed up the nostrils promotes sneezing and used as a liniment the flow of mucus from the head; taken as food in vinegar it purges the womb. Mixed with cobbler's blacking it removes warts.
Being aphrodisiac it is also administered to horses and asses at the time of service.
Nevertheless, the story about scorpions’ attraction for pots survived through the centuries, and basil is often represented in a pot in ancient manuscripts (Illustration 5).
And the Pot
Despite its bad reputation, basil crossed the centuries and became even a powerful symbol of love best staged by Boccaccio (1313-1375) in Decameron. One of the stories told during the days of lockout during the plague in Florence (Day 4, Story 5), is on the tragic love story between Lorenzo and Lisabetta.
As Boccaccio tells it, Lisabetta is an unfortunate woman who falls in love with Lorenzo, a boy of low social standing, whereas she is destined to marry a rich gentleman. Lisabetta’s brothers kills Lorenzo to prevent the two from conjugating their romantic dream. Lorenzo returns, however, to Lisabetta in a dream and reveals the place where he is buried. Lisabetta digs the body up and, to preserve his memory, she cuts off his head and hides it in a pot, then covers it with “the best basil from Salerno … the basil grew large and healthy, and it was sweetly perfumed” (translation © 2016 Christopher DiMatteo. All rights reserved).
The story inspired John Keats (1795-1821), with the poem Isabella or the Pot of Basil that consecrated the new image of basil, particularly in the stanzas 52-54, and also ended the long relationship between the scorpion and the pot:
LII.
Then in a silken scarf,—sweet with the dews
Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby,
And divine liquids come with odorous ooze
Through the cold serpent pipe refreshfully,—
She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose
A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.
LIII.
And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
And she forgot the dells where waters run,
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
She had no knowledge when the day was done,
And the new morn she saw not: but in peace
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore,
And moisten’d it with tears unto the core.
LIV.
And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
So that the jewel, safely casketed,
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.
Keats, Isabella or the Pot of Basil, originally published in 1820 (The Poetical Works of John Keats. London: Macmillan,1884, 38).
Through Keats’ poem, Isabella’s story was further transformed into a visual motif several times painted by Victorian artists (Illustrations 6-8). Basil took on another new value, visual, but not only. And the old pot was definitively shattered without uncovering any scorpion.
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