Another Greek comic writer, Diphilus, of the third century B.C., likewise says of onions: They are hard to digest, though nourishing and strengthening to the stomach. They are cleansing also, but they have a weakening effect on the sight. In addition, they stimulate sexual desire.
The pungency of pepper is relished gastronomically. But pepper had another use apart from its function as a condiment. It was pounded, then mixed with nettle-seed, and in this form it was regularly taken by the Greeks as a means of promoting intercourse.
Wine has for ages been lauded poetically and convivially, and a vintage meant, as a rule, a matter for gastronomic appreciation. But old wine, with the addition of ground pyrethron—which is botanically feverfew or pellitory, was known to the Hellenic people as a particularly powerful erotic potion.
Such draughts, however, had then more sinister applications as well, and not infrequently they were considered injurious physiologically. This was, in fact, the considered view of the Roman poet Ovid, of the first century B.C. In contrast to such a potion, he asserts, there are quite innocuous aphrodisiac stimulants, among them: eggs, wild cabbage, stone-pine apples, and honey.
To discover a plant that, unexpectedly and arousingly, ‘kindles the flame of love,’ must have been a revelation to the ancient Greeks. Such a plant was pyrethron, so named because it was such an inflammatory stimulant.
It was also known as pyrethrum parthenium, and was largely used for medicinal purposes.
In modern terminology, this plant is identified with pellitory.
In Arab countries pyrethrum was pounded and mixed with lilac ointment and ginger: and the resultant compound served to produce erotic stimulation in the genital area.
In his determined search for amatory satisfactions, man has probed deeply into the material world and also into conceptual zones. Thus erotic stimulation may be produced by an inspired dream. This is the situation in a comedy by the Greek poet Aristophanes, who flourished in the fifth century B.C. The play has survived in fragments only, but may be pieced together into some degree of cohesion, the theme being the problem of an old man who has a young wife. The aged husband makes a pilgrimage to the oracle of Amphiaraus. As a result of his visit, the solution of the marital perplexity is revealed in a dream, and the virility of the elder is restored. In the scattered fragments, there is a suggestion of the means adopted by the husband. It took the form of a dish of lentils.